


How to Save a Life

by Jael



Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV)
Genre: Dreams, F/M, Leonard Snart Lives, Major Character Injury, Time Travel, Timey-Wimey
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-21
Updated: 2019-08-21
Packaged: 2020-09-23 16:38:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 20,464
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20343286
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jael/pseuds/Jael
Summary: In one moment, Leonard Snart is bleeding out in an Central City alley. The next, he's waking up on some kind of ship, where weird shit keeps happening all around him, his oldest friend is avoiding him, and an intriguing blonde he's never met before seems to know him far too well. What the HELL?





	1. Step One, You Say We Need to Talk

**Author's Note:**

> This was meant to be a longish one-shot. More than 20,000 words later...well, I guess it still is! There are five chapters, because it just seemed to work better that way, but all are posted. Many thanks to Pir8grl, and happy birthday to LarielRomeniel!
> 
> This is all Leonard's POV, except for one brief part near the end, and Leonard has no freaking clue what's going on--and HATES that. It was interesting to write from that persepective. :)

_Lay down a list of what is wrong_

_The things you've told him all along_

_And pray to God he hears you_

_And I pray to God he hears you_

-"How to Save a Life," The Fray

* * *

**May 2005, Central City**

Leonard had always thought that dying would be…different.

For one thing, for a long time, he always thought that it’d be Lewis to get him, in the end. As he’d grown older, he sort of figured it’d be a mutual sort of thing, though: Lewis finally deciding that his son was too much competition and Leonard getting his licks in before it's done.

Maybe that’s still what happened, he thinks distantly, lying in a puddle of his own blood in the alleyway, consciousness wavering as the world darkens. The dark figure who’d surprised him as he’d slipped away from casing a bank, who’d shot him in the shoulder, could have been hired by Lewis. He doesn’t think so, though, for reasons he can’t quite part a finger on. Doesn’t really matter anyway, not at this point.

He’s dying.

The quantity of blood gushing from the wound meant an artery hit. Leonard had been down on his knees from the shock of it even before the attacker had turned away, and while he’d struggled to get back up, he just couldn’t do it. He’d slapped a hand to his shoulder as the pain hit, driving away speech, and watched through graying-out vision as the figure turned away rather than finish the job.

Which, frankly, said rather a lot about the confidence and the quality of the original shot to begin with. The attacker had been a professional.

He’d had to put a hand down to steady himself, then realized that arm wasn’t going to hold him, not at all, and fell unceremoniously to the pavement, cheekbone hitting the ground in a way that probably hurt a good bit itself. But separating different points of pain was impossible, right then, everything subsumed in the shock and agony of the bullet wound.

His hand’s still stuffed against the entry point. Distantly, Leonard knows he should keep it there, even as instinct says to try to drag himself toward the street. There’s a chance someone could call an ambulance in time if he’s found.

Blood’s flooded over his hand, though, washing his clenched fingers in warm red, and his heart is hammering. He can’t feel his feet, and it’s hard to focus. No, he’s not going anywhere. Except _away_.

Distantly, he’s angry. Such an fucking _ignominious _way to go. And he can’t tell Lisa...tell Mick...

Some part of his brain registers the footsteps that pause at the opening to the alley and then rush in. He can’t see much more than vague shapes.

“Oh my god,” someone breathes as they approach. A woman’s voice, he thinks. Her shape suddenly looms as she goes to a knee in front of him. Small, cool fingers press against this throat, seeking a pulse, and Leonard wants to say something, to confirm that he’s still in there, but he just can’t quite manage it.

“Are we…are we too late?” another voice says, male this time.

The fingers are withdrawn. “He’s alive.”

"I’ll fly him to Central City Hospital...”

“It’s too late...hospital,” the first voice says, fading in and out. “We have...to the ship.”

Ship? Leonard tries to force his eyes open farther, but it doesn’t work. The pain’s more distant now. That’s probably not a good thing. He’s losing his grip on consciousness and probably life.

God damnit.

“...not sure how to move...things worse...”

The last words he hears are oddly clear: “If we don’t get him there...it won’t matter anyway.”

* * *

Leonard opens his eyes.

It takes, truthfully, a rather monumental effort. He feels...drained. Exhausted. As if every bit of energy had leaked out with his blood.

Blood. He stares straight ahead, fighting down a rush of panic, feeling the not-uncomfortable surface below him, willing the indistinct shapes around him to come into focus. He remembers being shot. Remembers pain. Remembers the hard, rough surface of the pavement. Remembers someone checking his pulse...

He blinks. Focuses a little. His mouth is dry, his eyes crusted with sleep. There’s still pain, but it’s distant, background noise instead of screaming along every nerve. He feels rather alarmingly weak.

“Back with us?”

Leonard’s eyes flick to the side, followed by a tentative and not-unsuccessful attempt to turn his head. There’s a dark-haired woman sitting there, watching him, knees pulled up against her chest and arms wrapped around her legs.

He’s pretty sure he’s never seen her before in his life. She doesn’t look unfriendly, although neither does she look anything like any medical professional—or police guard—he’s ever encountered.

“Where...?” he manages, voice a rasping noise that makes him wince. His throat hurts.

Something flickers through the woman's eyes. “It’s...well. A medical facility.” She stands. “Thirsty?”

At his jerky nod, she turns to get a glass of water. Leonard considers her words. Truth, he thinks, but not the whole truth.

She doesn’t let him have much, just a few cautious sips through a straw, but the water helps. He works it though the dry tissues of his mouth before swallowing with another wince, glancing around. There’s a huge white bandage covering his shoulder, an IV of some sort in his arm and what seems to be a blood transfusion going on his other side, but this doesn’t look much like any hospital he’s ever seen. Doesn’t sound or smell like one, either. Far too quiet and not institutional-seeming enough.

The woman’s still standing, watching him. Once he’s focused on her again, she nods, then tilts her head back toward what seems to be a doorway.

“I’m gonna go get someone to talk to you,” she says. “OK? It’ll be just a few minutes.”

Do they think he can’t be left alone? Or is that a warning not to run? He doesn’t think he could if he wanted to, frankly. But Leonard nods, watching as she leaves through a door that slides open and closed like something out of _Star Trek_.

Huh.

He tries to study the room more, to get a look at the quietly beeping monitors that seem to be attached to him, to remain watchful and on point for the “someone to talk to” to arrive, but he just can’t seem to focus all that well. He winds up closing his eyes briefly, conserving strength, trying not to worry about something he can’t very well change right now anyway.

He opens them again an indeterminate amount of time later, to the sound of footsteps.

The blond woman stops in her tracks when he looks at her, and there’s the damnedest expression on her face. Leonard frowns a little, considering it. She looks for all the world like she’s seeing a ghost and not a flesh-and-blood (there has to be _some _blood left in him, right?) human being, like Leonard’s a long-lost sheep finally back in the fold. There’s pain there, and grief, and regret.

But he’s never seen her before in his life. He’d have remembered. He’s sure of it.

Slowly, she moves forward, until she’s only about a step away, blue eyes still fixed on his face, expression now carefully blank. Then she tilts her head to study the monitors around him, showing no reaction at what they tell her.

Or maybe, he thinks, she’d just wanted time to compose herself. But, again, _why_?

Leonard’s only able to ponder that for a moment, however, before the blonde looks back at him.

“Do you remember what happened?” she asks carefully, studying him.

Leonard considers that briefly.

“Got shot,” he tells her, watching her wince at the roughness of his voice. “Was...working on dying when someone showed up, apparently t’rescue.”

She nods, taking a deep breath. “That was us. The rescue, I mean.”

He gets the one-word question out before she can say more. “Us?”

“A...a group. A team.” She puts her hands up placatingly while Leonard wonders if he has the energy to press for more. “It’s complicated. Let’s just say an enemy of ours targeted you.”

“_Why_?” There’s that word again.

A hesitation. “Because you...he sees you as a threat. Because it could change...things...” Her voice runs off and she shakes her head. “Please. I can’t say more. But we got there in time, barely, and you’re here. Now.”

There’s something... Leonard can’t help feeling irritated at the lack of information even as he recognizes that these mystery people must have saved his life.

“OK,” he rasps, letting his head fall back again, further irritated by the continued exhaustion. “Thanks. Y’can let me go home now. I’ll lie low. For a bit.” It’s pure bravado, really—he doesn’t think he can stand, much less walk—but all the mystery crap is annoying him.

The response is swift. “What? Not yet.”

His eyelids are too damned heavy. “Why…not…”

“Well, for one thing, he’s still out there, and you’re weak as a newborn kitten.” She sounds acerbic. And much closer. Leonard forces his eyes open and sees the blond woman standing right next to him, close enough to touch him.

And she kinda looks like she wants to. Maybe. Touch him, or kiss him, or punch him, or some combination of the above. He wonders vaguely if he’s hallucinating all this. Blood loss, or shock, or something.

Why does she seem like she knows him?

“OK,” he manages. “For now.”

And then he closes his eyes, and against his will, he’s gone again.

* * *

He dreams about Mick.

And Mick is here. In this weird hospital/not-a-hospital place. He looks older, and sadder, emotion in his eyes in a way Mick never, ever lets anyone see, especially not on purpose. He’s watching Leonard with those eyes, and the blond woman is standing beside him, and they’re…talking about him?

“...needs more blood...Gideon says...still...not fully stable...”

“...stubborn ass...”

More mumbled, indistinct noises as Leonard tries to focus. It doesn’t really work.

“…we jump?”

“Not yet.”

“This Monarch clown...”

“...can’t risk...if we lose him again...”

Again?

But he loses the thread, and full unconsciousness claims him.

* * *

Leonard wakes again when someone grabs his right wrist. Or, rather, when someone grabs it and he, just barely on the edge of waking, reflexively jerks it away, sending a tidal wave of pain crashing from his shoulder, washing over him, making his vision go white and gray.

Someone lets out a strangled howl, and a moment later, he realizes it was him.

Two voices rise around him even as he tries to get a grip again, to force the pain and panic back down to where he can quash it. Things are shaking, for some reason, as if there’s an earthquake or as if they’re in a moving vehicle, and that’s not helping matters at all.

“We’ve gotta jump!” he hears, blinking madly as the world starts to come back into focus. The speaker, a brown-haired man, is looking not at him, but at a dark-haired man who’s on his other side.

“I know, but if he starts bleeding again...” the dark-haired man retorts, then seems to realize that Leonard is awake and staring at him.

“Hey,” he says earnestly, reaching for Leonard’s left wrist. He looks like the sort of guy who does everything earnestly. “Snart, we need to strap you in here a minute, OK? It’s gonna get rough—rougher— and you don’t want to fall.”

Trapped in this not-a-hospital bed while all manner of havoc breaks out around him? Hell, no. Leonard jerks his hand away, glaring, prepared to fight insomuch as he’s capable of it at the moment. He starts to tell both of them off, and...

The whole room tilts dramatically, shaking, and then sort of _lurches_.

Both men go crashing to the ground.

And Leonard blacks out.

* * *

When he struggles back toward the surface, things are still again, and there’s no one else there. Still, these people must be keeping an eye on him somehow, because he barely has a chance to blink and glance around before the door slides open and the same blond woman enters.

She stops a moment as the door closes behind her, as if composing herself again, then starts toward him.

“How are you feeling?” she asks quietly as she approaches. “Much pain? Any headache?” She glances at one of the monitors near him, looking relieved. “Your vitals are good, anyway. That’s promising.”

“What...what was that?” Leonard shakes his head a little, then looks back toward the floor as if the clowns from before will rematerialize. “Who were they?”

“Mmmm.” She looks like she’s considering the answer, then sighs. “_They _are two members of my team.” She gives him an even look. “They were trying to help, although they didn’t go about it very well.”

Leonard, who doesn’t feel even remotely sorry, lifts his chin. “Maybe if you told me what’s going on, I’d be more inclined to cooperate,” he retorts, wincing at the continued roughness of his voice.

"And maybe if you cooperated, I’d be more inclined to tell you more about what’s going on.” She lifts a hand, though, as Leonard tries to retort again. “Never mind. I’m glad you’re OK.” She hesitates. “We were attacked. It’s over. For now.”

As he digests that, she nods toward his shoulder. “Would you like some more pain medication? I’m gonna need to have a look at that, and it’s probably not going to be pleasant.”

Leonard doesn’t answer immediately, suddenly cognizant of a little more than before. For one thing, he’s not wearing what he was when he was shot, the dark jeans and sweater and jacket, but some sort of odd robe, not quite a hospital gown. He lifts his left hand and studies it, remembering how he’d stuffed it against the gunshot wound, but there’s no sign of blood now, not even under the nails or in the creases of his skin.

He’s a little creeped out, frankly. He can understand them having to cut off the clothes to get to the wound, but someone’s scrubbed his hands and he hadn’t even realized it.

"Look,” he rasps, looking up at her. “What’s going on here?”

The woman’s face is carefully blank as she watches him. “You said it yourself before, you were shot...”

“Yeah, but this ain’t a hospital. And I’m grateful, really, ‘cause I was a goner, and I’m somehow still here, but...” He hesitates. Had he really heard Mick’s voice here? He couldn’t have. The other man had taken his proceeds from their last heist and gone somewhere warmer than Central City’s chilly, soggy spring weather, and even he couldn’t have run through that sum already. And why would he be _here_, anyway?

The woman nods at his hesitation. “It isn’t,” she confirms. “A hospital, I mean. But it _is _the place that...that saved your life. And you need to let us make sure that job is finished.”

Leonard regards her from beneath lowered lids. “Why?”

“You really like that word, don’t you?” Her lips twitch. “What’s it apply to this time?”

As she speaks, she reaches out carefully toward his shoulder, starting to slowly undo the medical tape on the bandage. Leonard tenses, but she continues, peeling back a piece at a time, and there’s no (additional) pain yet.

“Why’d you save me?” he asks, trying to distract himself. “Yeah, you said ‘an enemy of yours,’ but that doesn’t say why you’d care. Y’don’t know me from Adam.”

“So we were supposed to just let you bleed out in an alleyway?” Her face is still as she focuses on the bandage.

“Most would.”

“We’re not most.”

“Who’s ‘we’? Only seen you and those clowns and the dark-haired chick...woman,” he amends at the look she darts him.

“I told you. We’re a team.” Before he can ask more, she carefully peels back the top layer of the bandage, drawing a gasp from his throat. Leonard knows he has a pretty decent pain threshold—one good thing Lewis gave him—but while he’s been ignoring as best he can the constant strong ache, the faint pressure on the wound suddenly blazes into real pain again, the sort that makes his head spin.

The woman pulls her hands away abruptly, giving him a quick glance. She looks sad, he thinks, still trying to get his breath back. Why sad?

“Gid...” she starts to say, then clears her throat. “Ah. I’m going to up the pain meds, OK? I have to do this, and like I said, it’s not going to be pleasant.”

“Don’t like...pain meds...”

She scowls at him. “You’re white as a sheet, Leonard. Sorry, you don’t get a choice right now.”

He doesn’t see her do anything, oddly, but there’s a faint, heightened coolness around the IV, and the pain quickly grows a little more distant. He scowls at her. She ignores that, studying him a moment before turning back to the bandage.

“You some kind of doctor?” he asks as she peels away more layers, trying to distract himself.

“Nope.” The word is just a little too casual for him, given what she’s doing. “But I have...some training. Enough to help.”

But his drifting mind is focusing, sort of, on something else. “How’d you know my name?”:

“You had ID on you.” Interesting, though, the way she’d paused before saying that. He feels cool air, then, on skin, and focuses on her, her intent gaze on his shoulder, instead of wondering how bad the damage is.

“It’s healing well, believe it or not,” she says after a moment, glancing up at some screen over the bed. “Especially considering...well.” She takes a deep breath, then reaches over to a table near the bed, taking some sort of salve and applying it carefully and very gently to the area around the wound. “I think a lot of the pain is coming from the insult to the ripped-up muscles and the...the places where the bone shattered. It’s been fused, but it’ll still take some time to truly knit.”

That doesn’t seem...quite right. Leonard frowns. He’s never been one for hospitals—the last time he’d been in one was when his grandfather had died. And it’s much preferable, in his line of work, to learn how to patch yourself up when possible and have someone with some medical training around for when you can’t. He’s not truly sure how a real doctor would treat such things.

But given the nature of the original wound, what he remembers of it, her words seem a bit overly optimistic.

He turns his head a bit more, grunting as the motion pulls at the shoulder and clumsily shoves aside bandages with his left hand even as the woman swats at him. Finally, though, he gets a good look at it.

There’s only a thin, red seam, running down from the top of his shoulder, a good six inches long. There aren’t even any apparent sutures. Leonard studies it, distantly fascinated, grappling with what he’d experienced and what he’s seeing. It can’t possible have healed up that much, and yet...

“It was an artery shot,” he mumbles. “It was spurting blood. How’d you...”

The woman moves his left hand firmly away from the wound. “Got it clamped down, got you back here, where we have the technology to work some pretty amazing things,” she says. “Giving you some blood transfusions. That’s all you need to know.”

Her eyes are shifting away again. Leonard opens his mouth to argue, but she beats him to it.

“Hungry?”

“Starving, actually,” he says before he can think more about it. And he is. However long he’s been out, it’s apparent he hasn’t eaten in quite some time, even if they’ve been giving him something through that IV.

“Invalid food coming up.” She smiles a little as he makes a disgusted noise, then turns away, stepping toward the door.

“Y’know, could we at least be even?” Leonard calls after her.

“What?” She pauses, glancing back at him.

“Got a name?”

After a longer pause, the woman turns more fully, considering him. There’s something very tentative about her again, though he has no idea why.

“Sara,” she says quietly. “My name’s Sara.”

“Sara. OK. Well, thanks, Sara.”


	2. Between the Lines of Fear and Blame

To his faint disappointment, it’s not Sara who returns with a tray of food, but the dark-haired woman who’d been here when he’d first woken. She winks at him, giving him a grin that he grudgingly returns, putting the tray down on the table at the edge of the bed. Leonard eyes the steaming bowl of something there skeptically, giving the air a sniff before regarding it with new respect.

The woman notices and smirks.

“Chicken noodle,” she says conspiratorially, taking a seat. “It’s actually really good—homemade. No hospital food here; this is the same thing we’re all having for dinner.” She pauses. “I’m Zari, by the way.”

“Hello, Zari. Leonard.” He picks up a spoon, shifting a little toward the table, annoyed at how unsteady he feels. He’d rather like to go back to sleep again already, he realizes, annoyed at the weakness. But food will likely help, and sleep will be there afterward. What else is he going to do here?

“Hello, Leonard. You got this, or you need help?” She laughs at the expression he turns on her. “Tough guy, huh? OK. I’ll keep you company, if you don’t mind. Just in case.”

Leonard forebears to ask what would happen if he does mind. Instead, he just dips his spoon into the broth, catching a few shreds of chicken and a bit of carrot, and lifts it to his mouth. It _is _good. But he winces anyway as he swallows, throat still somewhat painful.

Zari, watching, hums in sympathy. “Throat sore?” she asks, nodding as he glances at her. “You were hurt pretty bad, you know. You...ah, you were on a respirator while...while they fixed you up.”

A resp... Leonard stares at her, spoon dangling from his fingers. “How long?”

The woman is rather obviously thinking, now, that perhaps she shouldn’t have said anything. “On the respirator or how long have you been here?”

“Either. Both.” He takes another spoonful of soup as he watches her, then sighs. “You’re not gonna tell me, are you?”

Her smile is faintly regretful. “You’ll have to ask Sara. It’s...complicated.”

“Ain’t it always?” The level of soup is shrinking rapidly. “So, Zari. If you can’t tell me that, can you tell me who else is on this...team?” Maybe he’ll recognize a name.

She considers that and nods. “Sara is our leader. Me. Charlie. Nate. Ray. John, though he’s not here right now.” A pause, a lengthy one, enough to pique his interest. “Well, a few other people who are...in and out.”

None of the names is unique enough to mean anything, but she’s definitely left someone out if he’s reading her right at all. “Who else?”

Zari opens her mouth reflexively, then closes it, eyeing him. “Why do you think there’s someone else?”

“What is it with this team and the answering-questions-with-questions thing?” But he’s finished the bowl of soup, and a yawn breaks through despite himself. Why was eating a fucking bowl of soup so exhausting? Zari chuckles a little and stands, reaching out to pick the tray up.

“Get some sleep,” she tells him, not unkindly. “I’ll make sure to save you a brownie for dessert.”

* * *

“...made it through the jump better than I hoped.”

“No thanks to Haircut and Pretty.”

It’s Mick. It’s definitely Mick. He’d know that rumbling voice anywhere. Leonard turns his head a little, frowning in his sleep, unable to focus enough to make himself wake up. He’s so tired...

“Well, they...pretty bruised up...hated to jump like that, but...”

“Y’had to do it, Blondie.”

Everything’s swimming together in the exhausted blend of images and sounds that’s making up this weird dream. He sees Mick the way he’d first met him, a 16-year-old kid, cynical beyond his years, who’d for some strange reason taken a liking to a scrappy, scrawny Leonard Snart and saved his life. But there’s a blonde standing next to him, there in the juvie setting of this bizarre hallucination, this mysterious Sara, her eyes sad and determined, shorter than Mick even despite the age difference here.

“What...gonna tell him?” Mick’s voice, though, is the older Mick’s voice. The one he is now, at 37. Or…is it?

“...have to tell...anything?”

“Snart...doesn’t take things on faith...he’ll keep digging...trust me...”

_Snart_. The name echoes.

But he can’t quite figure out why.

* * *

He’s still waking up from the latest bout with unconsciousness, blinking up at the ceiling and trying to get things to make sense in his head, when it does occur to him.

The ID he’d had on him hadn’t had his real surname on it.

How had the man from earlier, the dark-haired one, known it?

He’s still digesting that realization when Sara enters, pausing just inside the doorway before walking toward him. She’s dressed differently and Leonard realizes that he has no good way of marking the passage of time here, something that’s more than little unnerving.

“How are you feeling?” she asks tentatively, stopping at the bedside. “Want to try sitting up today?”

“Sore and cranky,” Leonard informs her, answering the first question before moving on to the second. “And yes. Please.”

Swinging his legs over the side of the bed isn’t too hard. Sara manages the tubes and wires still attached to him as he struggles upright-ish with an “oof,” putting a hand on the railing as the world swirls around him.

“Do I still have to be attached to that crap?” he asks, eyeing the paraphernalia with irritation anyway.

“Damn right you do.” She pauses, though. “Hm. You could walk to the bathroom, though. Wanna try?”

He does. And within a few steps, he’s pretty sure Sara had an ulterior motive in suggesting it, because he’s wobbly enough to need help, and his shoulder aches viciously as he moves. Still, he makes it there, shuts the door firmly as she smirks at him, and manages to take care of things without passing out.

He’d love a shave. And a shower. He eyes it a moment, then regretfully decides against it. Then he considers hinting to Sara that he could use a sponge bath, just to be an ass.

Probably not a good idea.

It’s probably a sign that he’s getting back some of his usual situational awareness, he supposes. Every instinct he has says she’s dangerous, or could be if her people were threatened. And he has no idea whatsoever what he’s done to be considered “her people,” but it seems he is.

He makes it back to the bed without incident, sitting down heavily and wondering why he feels like he’s run to the top of city hall and back. Sara gives him a sympathetic smile as he takes a deep breath, but it fades as he declines to lean back again and instead gives her a direct look.

“Now,” he drawls, watching her intently. “Where’s _Mick_?”

There’s a flicker of consternation there, he’s sure of it, before she retorts, “Who?”

“Mick. Mick Rory. My partner.” Leonard lets his voice harden a little, staring her down. “I heard him. I know I did. A couple times now.”

Sara shakes her head, but he sees her eyes shift again, away from him. “You’ve been through a lot; you’re hearing…”

“I’m not. I might be hallucinating, but I wouldn’t be hallucinating this.” He pauses. “And, y’know, I have no idea why, but you seem to have a hard time lying to me. So, tell me. Tell me to my face, looking me in the eyes, that I didn’t hear Mick.”

Sara nods. She looks him in the eye. She opens her mouth.

Silence.

And after a moment, she turns away...and then the door shuts behind her.

* * *

Leonard only manages to sit up right for a bit longer before he realizes that it’s not a battle he wants to fight. He swings his legs up and around with a pained grunt, subsiding back and closing his eyes.

He’s woken an uncertain amount of time later by Zari, who brings him the promised brownie and some relatively cheerful conversation about inconsequential things like cooking and chocolate and reading material. He likes her, he thinks, and he likes her even more when she promises to bring him some books now that he’s staying awake for longer.

Of course, then he promptly falls asleep again.

* * *

“...sleeping so much?”

Mick again. Leonard frowns in his slumber, and there’s silence again for a while, so long he fades again.

Then: ”...doing much better...still regaining strength...” It’s a new voice, a feminine one, and there’s something off about its timbre, though Leonard, in a dream haze, can’t place quite what.

“He really asleep? Heard...” Mick, again.

The new voice sounds a touch miffed, although Leonard’s not awake enough to digest why. “..._is_ asleep. But...not a deep sleeper...just like his older self...”

_What_? But the Mick-voice barks a familiar laugh.

“...always slept with one eye open. Hell to pay if Lewis...his old man...caught him off guard...glad that bastard’s dead...”

Huh? Last Leonard knew, Lewis was still all too alive and all too mean.

Another voice breaks in. Sara. “We have to decide what we’re going to do,” she says in a low tone. “If...less damage to tell him...or not...”

“...isn’t gonna let it go...amnesia pill anyway?”

The new voice takes on a vaguely lecturing note. “Mr. Rory is...part of who Mr. Snart is...too much a part of his psyche...makes it that much more unlikely that he’ll fully forget this, even with..."

“And he needs to.” Sara’s voice, low and full of...something.

Leonard, fading, tries to listen for more. But if they continue, he doesn’t hear it.

* * *

The lack of time indicators in his surroundings is annoying, but he’s starting to piece things together, though this place seems somewhat erratic in terms of things like meals and sleeping schedules. It’s nearly a full day, he thinks, before Sara herself reappears instead of just sending others—Zari or one of the clowns, the one named Nate—to bring him food and check on him.

Leonard had been kind of concerned he’d driven her off for good. As long as he recuperates and gets out of here, he’s not sure why he cares.

He’s sitting up and reading—having considered and dismissed getting up and trying to explore after an earlier round of vertigo—when she appears in the doorway. They stare at each other a long moment before Sara moves slowly inside and toward him. Leonard marks his place in the book and puts it down, not entirely sure what to say. She doesn’t _have _to tell him anything, after all, and maybe she’d been right—maybe he’d been hallucinating Mick’s voice. Doesn’t make much sense, but neither had anything else he’d heard either.

Eventually, she’s standing next to him, watching him as he’s eyeing her in return. _Why _does she look at him like that? Eyes guarded, yet intent, uncertainty mixed with confidence. Hurt and regret and recognition and…

Finally, Sara sighs and nods.

“Mick _is _on this team,” she says with an air of choosing her words carefully. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you before. He didn’t want...it’s kind of...”

“Complicated, I get it,” Leonard tells her, torn between disappointment—_why_?—annoyance and pleasure she really hadn’t been able to lie to him, plus a hefty dose of confusion why Mick wouldn’t want to see him. “So, can I talk to him?”

Sara frowns. “No. I’m sorry,” she says, and her words do have a ring of truth. “He’s...off on a mission of sorts, right now. I’m not entirely sure when he’ll be back.”

Leonard frowns, too. “Did you send him off on this…mission…on purpose?”

She looks at him evenly. “At his request.”

It stings. But…

“OK,” he says, just as evenly. “And just what is it you’re planning to steal? Because I…”

Sara blinks at him, interrupting. “_What_?”

“Isn’t that what this team is for?” Leonard blinks back at her, feeling the pieces he’d so laboriously put together during his more lucid moments falling apart. “It made sense…figured someone, this enemy of yours, tried to take me out so you couldn’t recruit me.” He reaches for habitual pride and arrogance. “I _am_ the best, after all.”

Sara…laughs. Incredulously. Ouch.

“I…no, we’re not,” she tells him, subsiding into the chair nearby. “We’re not stealing something. Not usually, anyway. I can see how you might have come to that conclusion, but…no.”

“Then what’s Mick...” Leonard stops. “Ah. You need something torched.”

“No!” Sara takes a deep breath. “No. Leonard, I’m sorry. But…I can just say that Mick is a member of this team, a valued one. For many reasons. And I’m sorry, but…no. You weren’t targeted because we wanted to…to recruit you.” Something wistful in her eyes again. “I would if I could. But I can’t.”

“I,” not “we.” Leonard can’t help but notice. That word—_why_—is on his tongue again, but he doesn’t say it. No matter how much he wants answers to so many questions, but that one most of all.

“Well,” he drawls instead, “the mysteries continue.” He lets a little annoyance into his tone. “I got fuckin’ shot, least you could do is tell me more.”

Sara glances away. “I know. And I’m sorry,” she repeats. “I wish….well. I wish a lot of things.” Leonard watches as she closes her eyes. “And I can’t have most of them.”

There’s pain there. No matter how much he wants to poke and prod until he gets some answers, he finds he just can’t do it. What’s wrong with him?

The confusion makes his voice harsh when he speaks again. “When are you gonna let me out of here?” he asks roughly. “I appreciate the…assistance. But I got things to do.” _Especially since it seems you don’t really want me _here.

Sara opens her eyes, regarding him.

“When it’s safe,” she says after a moment. “And when we’re absolutely positive you’re stable.”

Leonard snorts. “I’m fine.” He starts to move his arm to show her, only to stop as it aches, a bone-deep painful throb. “I’m fine. Sara, you can let me go.”

For some reason, those words make Sara freeze in her seat, staring at him with an expression that…well, he’d almost say it was grief.

“No,” she says quietly, meeting his eyes and glancing quickly away. “No. Not yet.”

* * *

She leaves soon after that. Leonard broods a while, irritated with all the mystery and his own weakness—in more ways than one—and read, waiting for her to return.

But when someone finally bring him a meal—breakfast, his internal clock really is quite off—it’s Zari, not Sara. And while he likes her, his expression must be unhappy indeed, because she plops down the tray and leaves posthaste.

Leonard decides then, in what he hates to admit is a fit of pique, that he’s going to take a shower.

He’s been able to wash up during the semi-supervised trips to the bathroom, but it’s not nearly enough for his taste. Leonard knows he’s a bit fastidious, result of years of life with Lewis, who distinctly _wasn’t_. (Does he really remember someone saying Lewis is dead? He’s not sure what to make of that.) He wants a thorough wash desperately. And he’s going to get it.

He gets to his feet without much of a problem, making sure to push off with his good arm, then carefully starts across the room, bringing the IV with him, ignoring how the edges of his vision fade out a bit. Focus, that’s the key. He’s good at focus.

Then something shatters it.

A female voice—one he’d swear he’d heard before—echoes around him, startling him and causing him to put a hand out to the wall, steadying himself.

“Mr. Snart,” the voice, which has no visible source, says. “You don’t want to do this.”

Leonard glances around a little wildly anyway. “And who the hell are you?”

“Gideon.” There’s a pause. “I’ve been keeping an eye on you, for Cap…Miss Lance.”

“Of course you are,” Leonard mutters. _Cap_? Captain? Is he on a ship? That would explain some of the motion at times. “Got a camera in here? I shoulda known.”

“Something of the sort.” Gideon pauses again as Leonard continues. “Wait, Mr. Snart. I will send someone there. You’re not…”

“I’m fine.” He glances around, wondering, as he moves forward again, hand still on the wall. “Why can’t you come here yourself?”

The voice gets a little tart. “Well, for one thing, I’m keeping an eye on more than just one foolish thief.”

“Ouch.” He smirks a little, then repeats: “I’m fine.” He’s at the door to the bathroom now, and he pauses to gets his bearings. He’s definitely a little light-headed, but steady enough. He thinks. Probably. “Just want a shower.”

“That is not a good idea.”

“Of course it is; I don’t want to stink up the joint.” He studies the shower. There’s some sort of soap in there, though just the one bottle; it will have to do.

“Your heart rate and blood oxygen levels…”

“I’m _fine_.” Pulling the robe (at least it’s not one of the classic hospital ones with the open behind) off is as exhausting as…as something that should be far more exhausting than this. He stands there a moment, just breathing, belatedly remembering that this Gideon apparently has eyes on him, then decides he doesn’t care. He steps into the stall, still dragging the IV contraption, and turns on the shower, looking up as the water hits him.

The world whirls around him, and everything goes gray. Then black.

Leonard comes to with water from the shower washing over him as he sprawls on the tiled floor, and looks up, blinking, at the hazy sight of Sara standing there and staring at him. The IV tower is toppled over on the floor besides him, water running out of the shower stall and on to the floor.

She doesn’t react at all to his nakedness but reaches out to turn off the water before kneeling on the floor next to him, distress in her eyes as she reaches out to put her fingers on his chin, turning his head toward her. “Leonard?”

“Wha…” He swallows, the world coming into a little better focus. “Sara.”

“Are you OK?”

Frankly, he’d expected recriminations instead of concern. “I think so…”

“Somehow, he didn’t hit his head.” Gideon’s voice echoes around them. “There are just some new bruises.” Her tone goes a little lofty. “I told him…”

Leonard groans and Sara sighs. “I understand,” she tells Gideon. “Truly. But that doesn’t mean…” She looks back at Leonard, who, for lack of anything better to do, smirks at her.

It doesn’t get the response he’d like.

“You _idiot_,” Sara tells him fervently, getting to her feet and holding out a hand to him. (A hand he takes, again for lack of anything better to do.)

“I needed a shower…”

Sara pulls him to his feet, steadying him, but she doesn’t stop speaking. “I…any of us would have been willing to stand guard so you could do that,” she tells him. “I was a fool because I didn’t think of it. But…” She shakes her head, repeating: “You idiot. You could have hit your head; you could have reopened the wound. You…”

Leonard’s had enough. He’s standing there naked and woozy in the shower, he still has relatively no idea what’s going on, his best friend is on some weird sort of mission and avoiding him, and the gorgeous woman he’s got his eye on is calling him an idiot. He yanks his hand away, reeling, though Sara grabs his elbow immediately.

“I didn’t ask for this,” he tells her. “I don’t know where I am or what’s going on, and you won’t tell me. Nothing makes sense, and…”

He stumbles a little, but Sara steadies him, distress in her eyes again. “Let’s get you back to bed…”

“I’m fucking _sick_ of being in bed…”

“And I don’t care!” Sara yells at him. “I fucking don’t care!” She drags in a breath as Leonard stares at her. “I just want you alive, you idiot. I’ve lost too many people, and…damn it, you’re not going to be one of them again!”

She squeezes her eyes shut, turning away, and for once, Leonard has nothing to say.

_Again_?

* * *

Leonard’s actually weak enough that it takes Sara a while to get him back to bed without both of them toppling over along the way. Once he’s back there (and in a clean, dry robe), Sara sits down heavily in the chair next to him, still looking a bit lost. After a moment, though, she looks back at him, meeting his eyes.

He doesn’t quite expect what she says next.

“You died,” she tells him bleakly. “After you were shot, right after we got you here. You lost so much blood that there wasn’t enough to keep your heart beating. You _died_, Leonard.”

He’d expected more recriminations, not… “I...what?”

“Twice.” Sara watches him. “On the table while...while we tried to save you. We had to resuscitate you, and it was really close, especially the second time. I...”

She looks down and swallows. Leonard waits, but that’s it.

“Why do you care?” he asks carefully, watching her, trying not to think about _being dead._

Sara’s still looking down at her hands. “You’re going to be...important to us.”

He can’t help saying it. “To _you_?”

Then: “_Going_ to be?”

Sara looks up. “You have to be...what you need to be, and I...we...can’t do anything to jeopardize that.” She swallows. “No matter how much we might want to.”

Leonard blinks. “I don’t,” he drawls uneasily, “understand any of this. And I _hate_ that.”

Sara actually smiles a little. “Stunner,” she says drily. “I knew…figured…you would.”

“And how the hell do you know me so…” He stops as she glances away. “You’re not gonna explain that either.”

“No.” There’s so much regret (and no little bitterness) in the word that he’s not sure how she manages to force it out.

And that’s when Leonard realizes he has a decision to make.

He can keep pressing for answers, keep fighting her attempts to keep him stable and healing, keep resisting the whole mysterious situation. Or, he can…let all this bullshit go, push the questions aside, and accept the help, which really does appear to be sincerely given.

_You_ died, _Leonard_.

The latter goes against the grain. He has no reason to trust these people—well, except for the fact that they did apparently save his life. And he hates not knowing what’s going on, hates the suspicion that there’s a whole big picture here he’s not seeing.

But, there’s just something about it. Something about Mick’s apparent involvement. Something about this place and everything he’s not seeing. And something about…well, Sara.

And he does like a good puzzle.

“OK,” he tells her, quietly. “OK. Thanks for the assist.” He pauses. “Once I’m a little less…wobbly, can someone stand guard so I _can_ shower?”

There’s surprise—and relief—in her eyes. “Of course.”

“And…” Leonard rubs his chin. “I want a shave.”

“I think we can figure that out.”

“Wouldn’t mind meeting more of the characters on this…” He takes a chance. “…crazy ship.”

“We’ll s…” Sara stops. “Ship?”

“It is, isn’t it?”

Sara eyes him. “In a manner of speaking,” she says slowly. “How…”

“Gideon nearly called you ‘captain.’ ” He tilts his head at her as she sighs. “Well, it explains the weird motion a few times. And it explains why you didn’t just drop me off at some hospital. You had to get out of town for some reason yourself, and you just took me along, and now we’re at sea.”

Sara rubs her forehead. “Well, honestly, a hospital couldn’t have saved…” She stops. “That’s not quite right. But…close enough.”

Leonard narrows his eyes, but he decides to leave that alone for the moment too. It’s a minor victory anyway. “So, where we goin’?”

“Nowhere in particular.” She has that choosing-her-words-very-carefully sense about her again. “Kind of…at anchor, I guess you’d say. In a safe zone.”

He considers that. “Hmm. And this enemy of yours, the one who shot me…”

“That’s one of the things Mick is doing. With another team member. Looking for him.” Sara pauses. “We have a…smaller craft, and they have it right now.”

“Mick ain’t precisely the nautical sort.”

She smiles a little. “You’d be surprised.”

For all he’s gotten a few answers now, Leonard wants more. But he’s also very tired from his little…adventure…and his eyes keep wanting to shut. Damn it.

“Y’could visit more often too, y’know,” he tells Sara, giving in enough to close his eyes. “When you’re not doing…captain-ing stuff. This is boring, this recovery business.”

He hears a quiet laugh. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.” Leonard thinks a moment. “You play cards?”

The quality of the silence is such that he cracks an eye to see what’s going on. Sara is looking at him with an expression that’s…well, he’s not really sure how to describe it. Perhaps…like a memory she’s tried not to think about has finally caught up with her.

“Yes,” she says quietly, after a moment. “I do.”


	3. Try to Slip Past His Defense

Things change, a little.

Once he’s been declared just a little more stable—and when the IVs come out—Leonard gets his showers. He grouses a bit—just enough to maintain an image—over the requirement that he uses a cane to get to the bathroom and the requirement to have someone outside the bathroom too, listening for a Snart-sized “thud.” Still, given what’d happened the first time, he can’t really argue.

Sara starts eating meals with him, at least most of the time. And then, a few days later after dinner, she hesitantly pulls a worn deck of cards out of her pocket and holds it up, smiling a little as his eyes light up.

They play gin. Sara wins that first game. But she doesn’t seem happy about it…in fact, she stares down at her cards with an expression that eerily echoes the one from when he’d first asked her about cards.

They switch to war—mildly to Leonard’s disappointment; he’d managed to tuck a few particular things up his sleeve. But at least she stays, and cards after dinner start to become a regular thing. Eventually, they even switch back to gin.

He starts seeing a little more of the others too—sort of. Zari brings a woman named Charlie with her once. But the former watches the latter warily whenever she opens her mouth, leading Leonard to conclude that Charlie might be a good source of information—so, of course, he doesn’t see her again much for a while after that.

Similarly, the dark-haired clown from before accompanies Nate once when the other man brings him some breakfast and stays in the room while he gets his wash-up. The dark-haired guy beams at Leonard the whole time he’s in the main room, though he doesn’t say at anything, and Leonard eyes him, wondering. No one who smiles that much, he thinks, could be quite…stable.

He doesn’t meet Gideon. He asks Sara about that, once, and she gets a distinctly odd expression on her face for a moment before she says that Gideon is…shy.

Which seems odd, given that the other woman seems to have her hands in everything, a combination of ship’s medic and purser. But it seems it’s one of the things he just has to accept.

Leonard gets stronger. Steadier. Sara brings him some real clothes, somehow perfectly in his size. The blood transfusions stop—though the meals he’s given still trend toward the red meat and iron-heavy. He needs, and uses, the cane less. He’s still stuck in the same place, though, and the restlessness is rising.

“You gonna keep me in this room even once I’m all better?” he asks Sara one night, between card games, though he tries to sound reasonable about it. He doesn’t really want to leave this ship, he finds. But becoming a true part of her crew...that notion, he finds intriguing. She’s said she can’t recruit him, but maybe...

Maybe she’s intrigued, too. Maybe she’ll change her mind?

Sara looks down at her cards. “The person who shot you is still at large,” she says in a low voice. “And...”

“But not on this ship. I presume.”

“No.” She glances up. “It’s just...it’s complicated, Len.”

He likes that she’s taken to calling him Len. “So you’ve said.”

“Well, I’m saying it again.” Putting her cards down, she sighs and stands, much to his regret. “I need to go. I’m waiting for...for a message tonight.”

“From Mick?”

It’s a good guess. And from the way she looks away, Leonard knows he’s right.

“Maybe he’s caught this asshole,” he offers. “Then...”

“Then you’ll have to go home.” Sara’s voice is bleak. And frankly, her words don’t make Leonard very happy either.

“Recruit me,” he tells her, getting to his feet with barely a wobble—yay—and taking a step toward her. “I can be part of this crew. I’m a hell of a thief.”

Now, why do those words make Sara freeze again?

“I know,” she says quietly, after a long moment. “But...”

“But you’re gonna tell me again that I have to _be_ _something_.” Leonard knows his words sound bitter. “I know. You’ve said. But can’t I be it here?”

He expects an immediate “no.” But Sara surprises him—and from her expression, herself, too.

“Why do you want to?” she asks instead, folding her arms. “To stay here. You work alone, for the most part. Why would you want to stay here?”

_You_. "Would you believe payback for saving my life?” He pauses, tilting his head. “How do you know I usually work alone?”

The answer is almost a little too quick. “Mick. And we don’t need you to pay us back. This guy...he’s our responsibility. We had to save you.”

“Of course.” He hesitates, watching her. “That’s all?”

Sara glances away again. “No. But you know I can’t tell you anything more.”

“And I’ve been good about not pressing.” Keeping his voice low, Leonard takes a step toward her. “But. Sara.” She looks back at him as he takes another step. “I _do _want to stay here.”

Sara watches him carefully. “And why is that?” she asks again, as Leonard moves even closer. She doesn’t move away. Not even as he reaches carefully up with his weaker hand (it’s not even shaky, now) and touches her cheek, very gently.

Instead, she closes her eyes and lets out a long breath. “Len...” she whispers.

He’s not sure what’s possessed him to do this. To act this way. To feel this way. He’d considered himself done with emotional entanglements at this point, at the lofty age of nearly 33. Not for him, anything approaching traditional romance. But this ship’s captain, with her fighter’s stance and her leader’s heart, who’s somehow won even Mick’s loyalty, intrigues and attracts him more than anyone has in years.

“I need a challenge,” he tells her quietly, in part answering the earlier question. “I’d like it to be this. But only if you want it to be.”

Sara, further to his surprise, opens her eyes and smiles at him, right into his eyes, despite their continued closeness. “You think I’d be a challenge?”

The tone is unexpectedly flirtatious. Leonard draws in his own long breath. She smells like...some sort of herb, he thinks. Something green and crisp and fresh.

“Not...” He coughs. “I think I’d like to get to know you and this crew better.” It’s an admission. “I think I’d like to be part of a team you lead. “It’s another admission. “And I think I’d like to see where...where me and you...could go.”

And that’s the biggest admission, for him, of all.

But the flirtatiousness in Sara’s eyes is frozen, again. Something he’s said. What?

She takes a step back, and Leonard’s hand falls away. For a moment, they simply watch each other.

Finally: “It can’t happen,” Sara says quietly. It seems like she’s speaking as much to herself as to him. “I wish…but it can’t.”

He wants to follow her. To pull her close. To tell her that it’s at least worth a try. To kiss…

He doesn’t. And after a moment, Sara turns and walks away.

* * *

Leonard wouldn’t mind a drink, at this point, but he doesn’t have any alcohol, and Gideon, no matter how much he asks, won’t give him any. Finally, he buries himself in a tome Zari had brought him and reads himself to sleep.

He hears Sara in his dreams.

“Did we….a mistake?”

The response is in Gideon’s calm tones. “…had to…would have changed everything…”

“Will…really forget?” Her voice is so sad that he wants to reassure her. But he’s far more asleep than awake, and he can’t seem to find enough concentration to use his voice or make it otherwise.

Gideon’s response is quiet. He can hear Sara’s sigh, though. Somehow.

“Any word…Mick?...late.”

“No, Captain Lance.”

“Put him through if…”

“Of course.”

He thinks that, just maybe, her lips brush his forehead before she leaves. But maybe that’s just his imagination.

* * *

Leonard tries to go for a walk the next morning, but those odd, self-opening doors won’t let him out. He glares at them, thinking that they look more like the doors on a spaceship than a sailing ship.

Huh. That would explain a lot.

But at heart, he’s a practical guy, and that idea’s pretty out there. Deprived of a walk, he settles for doing some stretching exercises Sara had taught him, hoping he hasn’t driven her away, hoping...

Well. Hoping.

But when she does return, it’s not even remotely in any way he’d expected.

The ship had started shaking, motion quite abrupt, listing from side to side and making Leonard put a hand out to steady himself and then turn toward the exit, wondering what to do. Is there a storm? An attack? Or…

The door slides open. Sara peers into the room for a moment, hands braced on both sides of the doorway, then run-stumbles in as the ship shakes again. “Len! Are you all right?”

“Yes. What the hell…”

“We’re under attack.” The words are grim, and the ship makes an odd move sideways again, as if it’s been struck. Sara starts toward him, only to stumble at another impact, and Leonard puts out his arms to steady her as they both lurch toward the wall. They stare at each other…

And then Sara pulls away, just a little, and raises her voice. “Mick!?”

Leonard blinks. “He’s back?” He feels a little betrayed that no one told him.

“Not long ago,” Sara tells him. “And it appears someone followed him.”

But then Mick’s voice itself echoes around them. “I’m on the bridge, boss. I got the captain’s chair. I kin’ handle it.”

He sounds…Leonard narrows his eyes. Different. Not bad, but different. Confident and steady and maybe…older? Why would he…

There’s a worse lurch, then, a bad one that seems to send the floor out from under them and then sends it right back up. Both Leonard and Sara crash to the ground, Leonard making sure to twist to protect his shoulder. It still knocks the breath out of him.

Sara scrambles right back to her feet, lifting her voice again. “You sure about that? I’m in the medbay; I don’t think I can get there quickly…”

“Yup.” Mick chuckles then, a vaguely evil and self-satisfied sound. “Just tagged the bastard good.”

“Everyone else there and strapped in?”

“Yeah. Make sure Snart’s safe. This Monarch guy’s taggin’ us too...” He mutters something fairly profane as the ship shakes badly again. “...and this could be a bumpy ride.”

Leonard snorts, but Sara smiles a little, mostly without humor. “I will,” she confirms, looking toward him. “Give the bastard hell.”

But Leonard can’t resist. He raises his voice. “Mick! What the...”

Another lurch flings Sara sideways into him again just then, and there’s no response from Mick. The ship is shaking pretty good now, and it doesn’t seem to be stopping. Sara braces herself against Leonard as he tries to plant his feet, dragging in a breath and glancing around. “We have to get strapped in,” she tells him a bit grimly. “Mick’s a good pil...let's say, first mate, but I don’t know how bad this is going to get.”

She pulls away and reels more or less toward the bed, and Leonard follows her as best he can. But even as he does so, he’s thinking, putting pieces together.

“You were going to say ‘pilot,’ weren’t you?” he asks sharply as Sara hits a recess on the wall next to it, muttering to herself as nothing happens. “Is this...”

She tries another recess, swearing. “Is this _what_?”

It seems so stupid. “A spaceship?” The floor drops out from under them, then, as if in response to those amazing words, and Leonard grabs the edge of the bed, which is, at least, bolted to the floor.

Sara’s grabbed part of it, too, the top of the frame, and she sweeps her eyes down it before nodding—not in response to his question (he thinks) but to herself. Then she reaches over and grabs a fistful of Leonard’s shirt, pulling him toward her…and then pushing him down, onto the bed.

He doesn’t get a chance to do more than let out an “oof” before she’s there with him, pulling some sort of safety straps around them both. Leonard squirms just enough to turn toward her before they click, just in time for the ship to slip sideways, shaking everything, and drop again.

“What’s going on?” he asks breathlessly, speculation of a moments before nearly forgotten, staring into her eyes and managing, barely, to move his arms up toward her. (Bracing them both. That’s what he tells himself.)

“I’m pretty sure,” Sara tells him grimly, ducking in closer to his body, her own arms tightening on him, “that we’re crashing.”

Leonard thinks, briefly, that he’d been right…and then they’re plummeting, nearly in free fall far as he can tell. And weeks after nearly bleeding to death, he’s facing it again, but he has his arms around Sara, and despite all the certainty and strange doings of recent times, it’s OK, they’ll…

And then, with a crash, they hit.

It’s not as bad as it could have been, really. At least, Leonard figures that, having built up the image of an actual fuckin’ spaceship in his mind. Still, there’s an impact, a rough one, and his arms tighten around Sara as hers tighten around him and the ship groans and creaks and apparently skids along the surface of…of Earth? Oh hell, Leonard hopes it’s Earth.

Then things are still.

For a heartbeat, they’re frozen in each other’s arms. Then Sara jerks her head up, staring into Leonard’s eyes, and…and maybe something passes between them? Leonard can’t really say, because then Sara pulls away, springing the safety straps and getting to her feet.

“Gideon!” she says, raising her voice. “Gideon?”

Nothing. Leonard, getting carefully to his feet himself, left hand wrapped around his smarting shoulder, hears Sara’s intake of breath and frowns, glancing her way, noting the worry in her eyes.

“Why Gideon…” he starts, but Sara’s already ahead of him.

“Mick?” she calls, frowning. “Ray? Damnit. Comms are down. I need to…”

Her gaze flies to him, then, and Leonard can pretty much see the sudden debate there. They don’t want him leaving this room (maybe something to do with it being an actual fucking SPACESHIP), but she clearly needs to go check things out as soon as possible. And if he wants to get out of here, this would be a good time to press his case, but…

He can’t do it. He can’t make this harder for her.

“You gotta go; I get it,” Leonard tells her abruptly. “Got any medical supplies that I could…I dunno, help with? If anyone else comes in?”

The relief and gratitude on Sara’s face are clear. She points to a cabinet off to the side, even as her eyes dart to the door. “There are some medkits and more bandages in there. You’re OK? Your arm…”

“I’m fine, Sara.” Leonard hesitates just a beat. “Go. Take care of your…” Should he? “…_spaceship_.”

Sara smiles just a little even as she takes another step. “It’s…well. It’s not…quite…”

“Go, Sara. It’s OK.”

* * *

Despite his words, cooling his heels there by himself while waiting to find out what’s going on, well, _sucks_.

Leonard pulls out the medkits Sara had mentioned, puzzling over implements and medicines that don’t seem familiar. Still, there are the usual bandages and disinfectants too, and he figures he can help if he needs to. (When did he become the sort of person who _helps_?)

Then he waits.

It’s probably not as long as it seems, but it gives him time to think…and maybe even worry a little. Apparently the person firing on them (Monarch?) isn’t doing so anymore, but that doesn’t mean all is well. In fact, Leonard eventually pokes around enough to find a spray bottle in one of the cabinets and then some peroxide to fill it. It’s not much, but it should distract pretty much anyone for a few moments if he gets them in the eyes.

Finally, there’s a noise at the door, and Leonard tenses, but it’s just the two clowns—Ray and Nate—and Zari. Nate and Zari are supporting Ray between them although the other man is taller than both, and they settle him in on the edge of the bed.

It seems to be nothing more than a bad ankle, so Leonard self-consciously lobs an elastic bandage their way. Zari catches it adroitly as Ray starts trying to unlace his right boot, wincing. At the same time, though, he’s beaming at Leonard in that enthusiastic and inexplicable way again—but this time, he apparently decides it’s OK to speak to him.

“Snart!” he says happily (_happily_?). “You’re OK!”

Leonard frowns. “Looks like you’re not.”

Ray shrugs. “I don’t think it’s broken,” he says, looking down at his foot. “Just sprained. Well, I’m no speedster…ha, ha...so I’ll just have to wrap it and hobble about a bit. I…”

_Speedster_? Leonard wonders, but Zari sighs loudly, interrupting.

“Everyone’s OK. Including Mick,” she tells Leonard seriously, to his great relief. “Just a little shaken up from the…what did Mick call it?...’rough landing.’” She coughs, muttering “_crash_” under her breath. “And he shot the Monarch down too.” Her smile is a little grim. “I doubt that particular baddy’s going to be bothering anyone anymore.”

Leonard pauses, studying her. “The guy who shot me?”

“Yeah.” Zari studies him in return as Nate yanks off Ray’s boot, drawing some incredibly mild profanity. “His ship went up in flames. I think Mick and Charlie are checking it out now.”

If the enemy is dead…he can go home. By Sara’s own words, he _has_ to go home.

The shock of dismay he feels…it’s not precisely a surprise, but the sheer intensity of it is startling, a real kick in the stomach. He’s wanted nothing more than to get out of this room, but…

“And the…ship?” Leonard asks, shoving that aside for now. “This ship, I mean?”

Zari nods. “The ship’s fine,” she tells him. “Going to need some repairs, but Mick handled the _landing _pretty well, believe it or not. And Gideon…”

Her mouth snaps shut abruptly, which makes little sense to Leonard—at least if everyone’s really OK. He tilts his head, wondering what he’s missing. “She’s all right?” he asks slowly. “Sara…”

Gideon’s voice, however, cuts in at that point. “I am fine, Mr. Snart,” she says simply. “I was simply busy…recalibrating…things.”

“Good?” Leonard glances back at Zari, puzzling over the matter. But the dark-haired woman smiles too, as if in relief, casting her eyes back toward the ceiling.

“Great to hear you, G,” she says, then glances back at Leonard. Her gaze is thoughtful and there seems to be something almost a little sad in it. Something understanding.

“I don’t know how long the repairs will take,” she says slowly, “but…I mean, you’re stuck here until then, anyway.” Another pause, and a sigh. “Y’know, Sara is…”

“Sara is what?” The captain in question strides into the room, looking around. Her eyes meet Leonard’s and she smiles, but there’s definitely a shadow there. The same shadow, perhaps, that he’s feeling.

Zari sighs again. Dramatically.

Sara ignores her, eyes still on Leonard’s. “The Monarch is…no longer an issue,” she says quietly.

Leonard considers any number of responses. “OK,” he says finally.

She’s no more eloquent. “Yeah.”

Zari makes choking noises. Then Ray speaks up, startling them all.

“Hey,” he says brightly, kicking his now-heavily wrapped ankle in the air. "That means we have to put Snart—this Snart—back right? Before we do, we can tell him...”

Nate’s wrapped his hand around the other man’s mouth, and he’s looking rather desperately at Sara.

“I’m sorry,” he says quickly. “Gave him the good pain-killers. Not a good idea, I guess.”

The captain sighs, a distinctly long-suffering sound.

“No,” she says with resignation. “Not really.” A glance over her shoulder as Nate carefully releases his friend. “Ray…”

“Oh! Crap!” The other man’s eyes widen. He’s staring at Leonard. “Um, sorry about the cold gun. I…”

Nate immediately replaces his hand, again. Ray makes a muffled protest, again. Leonard frowns, again, and looks at Sara. Who sighs. Again.

“Come with me,” she tells Leonard, catching his arm. “Please.”

Leonard blinks at her, distracted—which may, he thinks, be what she’d intended. But it’s still effective, and he does indeed follow her…toward the door of the room in which he’s spent the past however many days.

That door slides open. Leonard hesitates on the verge. Sara steps outside, tugging gently.

“It’s OK,” she says. “Come on.”

Leonard takes a step. Then another, out into the hall. It’s as futuristic-seeming as he’d thought from the glimpses he’s had already. A very updated sailing ship? He’s seen (or stolen from, rather) luxury yachts nearly as smooth and advanced as this. Or...

Sara’s hand has moved downward to his hand, their finger intertwining almost without volition. Leonard glances at her, but she barely seems aware of the gesture, her eyes moving around the hallway as if watching for trouble...or something he’s not supposed to see. Then she tugs on his hand again, pulling him to the right, and they start down the hall.

Leonard swallows hard, looking around, wondering.

“So,” he says, glancing her way, “spaceship?”

Sara steadfastly doesn’t look at him. “Not quite.”

He glances around the corridor. “How is something not quite a spaceship? It is or it isn’t.” He pauses and adds, mostly joking, “Tardis?”

She doesn’t respond verbally...but her eyes flicker in a way that makes him stop in his tracks and stare at her.

“You’ve gotta be kidding me.”

Sara shakes her head and seems to recover, then sighs, pulling Leonard onward. “I only know what a Tardis is because of Ray.”

“You’re not denying it, though.”

“That’s because it’s...OK, it’s not a Tardis.” She stops and pulls her hand away, holding it up as he starts to retort again. “Really. And this is your new room.”

The words—and the door sliding uncannily open at that moment—stop him in his tracks. “Really?”

Sara nods, though she doesn’t look entirely happy. “Until we take you home. As soon as the ship is repaired.”

“And how long’s that gonna be?”

Sara takes a deep breath. “A couple days,” she says quietly. “I think. Could be more. Probably not less.”

A few days. Leonard meets her eyes. Then he looks away, into the room.

It’s not so much, really. A bed, built into the wall, a screen showing a snow-covered mountain above it. A desk. Some sort of cabinet. A door in the other wall—bathroom? Closet? But it’s a sort of freedom, anyway. He glances back at Sara. “I get you might have needed the other room, but...am I just going to be stuck in there now?” He nods into the new room, watching her intently.

“No.” Her smile flickers at the look on his face, although Sara then folds her arms and tries to look stern. “But stick to this corridor...or I might need to take away that privilege.”

Leonard rolls his eyes. “Right, captain.” He turns back to the room, stepping inside and glancing around. “So...you’ll still visit to play cards? Have dinner? Talk…?”

The words emerge...ugh...almost wistful. But Sara, following him in, doesn’t point that out. In fact, her eyes sparkle a little, he thinks, as she watches him. It’s a rather frenetic sparkle…but hey, he’s pretty sure it’s touched off a similar feverish gleam in his. Because Sara is close, now. Very close. There’s not much space between them, really.

A couple days, they have.

Leonard shuffles forward too, and lifts his hands to carefully rest them on Sara’s hips. She lets him, looking up into his eyes. He starts to lean down, just a little…

“Oy! Sara! Mick says…” Charlie skids to a halt in the doorway to the room. Her eyes widen as Sara and Leonard glance at her, and she lets out an explosive “Fuck!” before hightailing it off back in the direction she came.

They look back at each other…but the moment’s gone, or at least changed. But still…there’s potential. For…

“Definitely,” Sara says, her voice a little husky. “I mean, I have responsibilities. But…”

Leonard doesn’t remove his hands. Not yet. “But you’ll make time.” It’s not a question.

“I will.”

“Good.”

* * *

Sara has to leave to go see what Charlie had to say (besides _fuck)_, and Leonard drifts back down to the…medbay, they call it?...to retrieve the meager belongings he’s collected while here. Clothes and borrowed books, toothbrush and razor. Not so much, really…but then, he hasn’t been on this ship that long. Really, probably not long enough for a life-threatening (or -ending) wound to heal.

He’s not exactly sure how long it’s actually been. Eerie. Oddly, at the moment, he doesn’t much care.

He keeps seeing Sara’s bright eyes looking up into his and feeling her hips under his hands.

As Charlie said, “Fuck.”

Lust is one thing. And he’ll admit there’s plenty of that here. But…sentiment? He doesn’t _do_ that. He doesn’t. He…

_Fuck_.


	4. Grant Him One Last Choice

Ray’s still in the medbay, now sacked out under the influence of the painkillers. Leonard, his belongings collected in a bag, studies the other man a moment, wondering. He still wants to know what a “speedster” is, what a “cold gun” is. And why this guy seems to know him—though not so well, perhaps, as Sara does.

He wonders if the ship’s tech will fix his sprained ankle. It’d fixed a gunshot wound, after all. Leonard rests his hand on the front of his shoulder thoughtfully, glancing around at all the equipment he still doesn’t understand. He’s no doctor, but he’s fairly sure this stuff isn’t general hospital issue.

He’s still tiring a little more easily than usual. (Gideon tells him that’s because of the energy expenditure used to heal him quickly, which seems sort of plausible anyway.) But otherwise, he’s completely recovered from the gunshot that had almost...well, killed him. Except for that new, thin scar on his shoulder—which they tell him can also be removed.

Normally, he’d jump at the chance. But the erasure of something like that...it doesn’t seem quite...right.

Being able to leave and saunter down the hallway to the new room is novel. But once he’s tucked his few things away, he’s back in the same old boat—alone and bored. And not even precisely sure what time it is...how long it might be until Sara will be back for dinner and cards and...

Maybe it’s time for a walk.

It takes 30 paces down the hall to the medbay. Thirty paces back. He does a few circuits, then stretches a little out of boredom. Then, on a whim, raises his voice. “Gideon?”

There’s a pause. “Yes, Mr. Snart?”

_Tell me about Sara_... “Is there anything I can do?”

“To help, you mean?”

“Well, seems like everyone else is busy.” He sprawls on the bed, hooking one foot over his opposite knee and staring at the ceiling. “Repairs, I s’pose?”

“And assorted other cleanup.” She sounds thoughtful. Ugh. He probably sounds...lonely. “I’m sorry, Mr. Snart. Most of what needs to be done is...technical work, for a ship of this sort. Navigational and power systems. That sort of thing.”

It makes sense, but... “So, what’s Mick doing?”

“He’s quite key to the repair efforts, actually.”

And that makes no sense whatsoever. “_Mick_? Mick’s mechanical abilities pretty much stop at hotwiring cars.” They’d learned some other shit back in juvie, but nothing Mick had ever cared to pursue.

“Your friend might surprise you, Mr. Snart.” Gideon’s voice is gentle. “People do change.”

“Huh.” It’s only been a month or so since Mick had left Central City, though. Leonard frowns, sifting through thoughts and memories of his time on this ship, holding them up against suppositions that still seem utterly unbelievable. “And you, Gideon? What’s your specialty?”

The pause is just long enough for Leonard to wonder, but then she speaks up again, a faint thread of apparent humor in her tone. “Just about everything, Mr. Snart.”

“Leonard, please. And isn’t that the opposite of a specialty?”

“Leonard.” Another pause. “Let’s just say I keep everything running smoothly, or at least try. It’s not always easy with this crew.”

“That, I can imagine.” He tilts his head, curious. “Sara’s a good captain, though, I imagine?”

“Yes. She is.”

Three small words, but there’s...Leonard frowns...a wistful thread of sadness in them. That seems odd, unless... “Ah. She’s someone’s successor?”

A longer pause. “You are astute, Mr. S...Leonard. Yes. She is...the second captain.”

“And the first was someone you cared about.”

“I care about all of them, Leonard. But, yes. Someone I cared about.”

* * *

Gideon’s conversation gets him through some time. A shower in the bathroom down the hall—a novelty, to be able to do that without someone babysitting him—gets him through more. Then he pokes his head back into the medbay, just in case Ray is awake...and preferably still stoned and unattended.

The other man isn’t there at all, stoned or otherwise. Leonard frowns at the empty room, then walks slowly back down the corridor, pondering what else he can do.

However, his door is open. And Sara is waiting inside.

She smiles as she sees him, putting a hand on the covered plates sitting on the desk. “Brought you dinner.”

Leonard steps in, letting the door close behind him. “That time already?” he drawls, trying not to show that he’d been bored out of his mind. “I’d lost track.”

“Mmhmm. It’s late, actually. Nothing special—chicken curry á la Charlie—but it’s pretty good.” She hesitates. “Still want company?”

How can she doubt...

His practiced insouciance deserts him, then. “Please,” he tells her, trying to make it sound like...well, not quite a plea, hooking a foot around one of the chairs at the desk and then pushing it toward her before snagging one for himself.

Certainly, Sara doesn’t seem loathe to stay—far from it. They eat in a companionable silence, taking their time, and when she rises to take their plates back to the galley, she does so with a murmur that she’ll be right back.

She leaves their usual deck of cards on the desk. Leonard reaches out to pick it up, fanning the cards in his hand and running a thumb over the face of the Jack of Hearts as it’s revealed. The deck isn’t a new one; in fact, it’s well used and worn, edges soft with the touch of hands over time. He wonders where Sara got it, with whom she’s played before. And if that isn’t a euphemism, well, it certainly _could _be.

He allows himself a rueful chuckle, thinking of her reaction to that. Truth is, he doesn’t care. He’s just pleased to be holding the deck now.

And _that _is the kind of fanciful thought Leonard Snart doesn’t usually allow himself. But...

He glances up as Sara comes back through the door, her eyes immediately falling to the deck. A still expression comes over her face, for all the world like that deck of cards isn’t quite just a deck of cards to her, either, and Leonard suddenly finds himself at a loss for words.

But then it’s gone, as if it’d never really been there, and Sara smiles, lightly taking the deck from his hands and walking toward the bed, shuffling the cards easily as she goes—and then hopping up in a manner he’d almost call proprietary and stretching her legs out in front of her.

“Gin?” she asks.

Slowly, wondering, Leonard strolls toward her, studying her and her casual posture, the easy way she’s taken over his new bed. Yes, indeed, something is different. The air is charged, like it was before Charlie interrupted them earlier, and Sara’s lashes are lowered as she watches him through them.

It makes him…nervy. Why the hell? But it’s been a long time since he’s…cared for more than a quick exchange of favors, and Sara is…special.

Something keeps him from perching on the bed next to her…yet. Instead, he keeps standing on the floor, leaning against the mattress, gazing up at her through his own lashes.

Oddly, something about that makes Sara go still in that same way as before. But then she shakes it off, smirks at him, and starts dealing.

Neither of them is playing quite well, though…maybe a little too distracted by the tension in the air. Eventually Leonard gives in and arranges himself on the mattress, too, barely enough room for the cards between them.

They talk, trying to pretend the distraction isn’t there. Sara asks, with an odd hesitation, about his sister. (Mick must have told her about Lisa, he figures.) And she tells him about hers, regret heavy in her voice.

“I...I let her down, so often in my life,” she says, staring at her cards. “And then I wasn’t there, in the end, and I let her down one last time. And it was right after...”

She stops. Her eyes flicker to him and away, and Leonard frowns, but takes a stab at reading between the lines.

“After you lost someone else?” he asks quietly, staring at his own cards.

The silence stretches. Then Sara nods, not meeting his eyes.

There’s something... “Someone you cared about?” He lowers his voice a little. “Lover?”

Sara’s mouth curves in a thoroughly humorless smile. “A...maybe,” she allows, finally looking at him again. “An almost.”

“Ah.” Leonard studies her, the shadow in her eyes, the way she’s both looking at him and not looking quite _at_ him. “I’m sorry.”

Sara pauses a long moment. “So am I,” she says, finally, putting her cards down and turning her full attention to him. “And it’s the things I didn’t do…”

Leonard leans over and kisses her.

As he brings his hand up to cup Sara’s jaw, he feels her quick intake of breath and pauses, ready to pull away. But then one of her own hands comes up to grab his collar, holding him close, and her other hand goes around to curve about the back of his neck, and her mouth opens under his.

_Damn_.

There’s no sense left, not really. Not for either of them. For an indeterminate amount of time, they just make out there on his bed, kissing, touching, hands wandering, clothing in increasing disarray. Sara’s straddling Leonard, though they’re both still fully clothed, by the time either of them come to their senses again—at least enough to really think about anything.

“Sara…” Leonard mutters against Sara’s lips as she shifts again, bracing her hands against his shoulders and making a guttural noise low in her throat. His hands are locked on her hipbones, and he gasps involuntarily as she rolls her hips again. His fingers tighten, and he knows she can clearly feel his erection though their clothing.

“Wha?” Sara murmurs back, indistinctly in part due to the fact that her lips are quite involved with his own…and his jaw, and his cheekbone, and his neck.

“I…I don’t have…any…aaahhh…”

Sara pulls away just a little, but she seems to have gotten the idea. “I’m good. You?”

Leonard, catching his breath, reaches up and touches her cheekbone. “Perfect,” he says under his breath, the answer—he hopes—clearly not just to her particular question. “_Sara_…”

No, he’s not good with feelings. But he feels the need to make some sort of…of declaration anyway, thinking about the person she’d lost before, the way he’d nearly died not so long ago, her conviction that they’re going to have to part so very soon. So, as Sara studies him, he takes a deep breath and says, “I know…I know you say I have to go. But…ah, hell, can we have something to remember each other by?”

And he realizes nearly immediately that it’d been exactly the wrong thing to say.

Sara stiffens, staring at him, then some sort of realization comes over her face, horror and fear mingling at what had really been fairly innocent words. She pulls away so quickly he’s just left gaping at her, still sprawling against the wall, erection straining his jeans, the taste of her still on his lips. She gets to her feet, backing away, shaking her head like waking up from a dream.

“I’m sorry,” she says breathlessly, buttoning her shirt, running a hand through her hair. “I…we can’t. We _can’t_, Leonard.”

The word explodes out of him. “_Why_?”

She just gives him one more helpless, heartbroken look…and then leaves, the door sliding shut behind her.

* * *

Leonard doesn’t go to sleep for a long while after that, but when he finally does, he dreams.

Even for a dream, it’s weird, because he’s really pretty sure the other assorted members of this crew really aren’t standing around his bedside this time, but he can hear them anyway.

“Well, _bollocks_.” That’s the accent he’s used to hearing from Charlie, and she sounds thoroughly disgusted.

“You guys think we should do…some sort of intervention?” Nate, and he sounds worried.

A snort. Leonard twitches. Definitely Mick. He’d know that attitude anywhere. “…talk ‘em into banging?”

“No!” Nate sounds horrified, but someone else, another man, exclaims over the top of him. “But…they can’t. Right? Um…not just…err, bang…but anything that keeps Snart from forgetting. Strong emotions, Gideon said. Mick, heck, you haven’t even _talked_ to him because of that…”

Another snort, but this one is…Leonard frowns in his sleep.

It’s sad.

But someone else is speaking now. Zari, he thinks. “…already pretty much fallen for each other,” she says acerbically. “After everything you said…is anyone really surprised?” She sighs. “To have a second chance, and not be able to take it…”

“I don’t get it,” Charlie cuts in. “Even if a few bits and pieces make it through, he’s still gonna forget...” For a moment, her voice holds a bit a less than what he thinks of as her usual confident bluster. “Let ‘em have this.”

Then they’re all talking over each other--at least for a minute, when Mick’s bellow interrupts them all.

“Enough,” he says, authority in his voice. “Pretty, Haircut…so you say they should stay apart, right?” Nate definitely agrees, while the other man—it must be Ray—sounds less certain. “And Z, Charlie, you say we should make ‘em work their shit out?” The women both agree.

“Well,” Mick concludes. “Guess I’m the tie-breaker.” There’s a long pause.

Dream-Leonard strains to hear…but then it’s gone, and he’s drifting again.

* * *

He wanders back and forth from his new room to the medbay the next day, restless and irritated at nothing in particular. Sara’s definitely avoiding him, but given what had happened, he supposes he can’t blame her.

Given the opportunity, he’d tell her that he’d rather have her company than not, even if it didn’t lead to anything else. But it doesn’t seem he’s to get that chance.

At one point, Nate’s in the medbay when Leonard wanders in, apparently checking some supplies. The other man mutters something and beats a hasty retreat, leaving Leonard even more irritated than before. There’s a fragment of a memory there, nagging at him, a dream in which the man had said something that Leonard had taken exception to. The logical part of him recognizes that’s a pretty dumb reason to take a dislike to Nate now, but he’s not feeling horribly logical at the moment.

At the end of one circuit, he sprawls out on the bed, sighing, stretching out and staring up at the ceiling. A nap would be good…but every time he closes his eyes, he sees Sara…

But then a voice distracts him.

“Snart. You there?”

Leonard freezes at the sound of Mick’s voice, familiar in so many ways and yet…not. Not only is the other man’s voice a little tentative (Mick? tentative?), it’s just subtly _off_. Not quite how he remembers it. But…

“Yeah,” he says, before he can start overthinking things again. “You could come visit, y’know.”

That gets a sound very like a sigh. “Can’t,” is the response. “Not even s’pposed to be doing this.”

Leonard snorts. “Since when have you ever cared about rules?”

But Mick’s rejoinder is immediate. “Since breaking them could seriously fuck shit up,” he says sharply. “Important shit. _Everything_.”

Leonard blinks, digesting the vehemence in Mick’s tone. “OK…” he says slowly. “Forgive me if I’m a little taken aback, because the Mick Rory I know…that I _thought_ I knew…wanted to watch the world burn far too often. Wanted to, as you say, ‘fuck shit up.’ With a vengeance.”

There’s a pause, and then Mick sighs. There are a lot of things in that noise, Leonard thinks in surprise: regret and pain, thoughtfulness and annoyance—though, not, Leonard thinks, at him.

“People change,” he tells Leonard, as if the words hurt him for some reason.

Leonard frowns to himself. He shifts a little, crossing his legs at the ankle, and folds his hands behind his head.

“That they do,” he agrees. “That, they do.”

It’s almost like juvie, oddly: talking in their bunks, saying things that were easier for two fucked-up and emotionally damaged teenagers to speak of when they weren’t looking another person in the eye. But Mick’s silent now, and Leonard really doesn’t want to chase him off.

So, he backs away from more charged matters and asks a question. “How’d you fall in with this lot?” he says, allowing sincere curiosity into his voice. “You’ve been outta Central only about a month, but they seem to know you awful well.” Does he sound jealous? Ugh, he does. “And I had no idea you knew how to…”

But he stops. “Pilot a spaceship” sounds, well, ridiculous.

Mick grunts. “Got recruited,” he says shortly.

Leonard smirks a little. “And you didn’t tell them to recruit me too? Mick, I’m insulted.”

His tone’s flippant, but then the silence stretches.

And stretches.

Leonard’s just about to say something else when Mick speaks again, though, completely changing the subject—to something that makes Leonard blink in disbelief.

“You like Blondie,” he says abruptly. “Don’t you.”

Despite the wording, it’s not a question. And distinctly _not_ the sort of thing they talk about. Leonard frowns. There’s a weird quiver of memory, like he’d heard something about this not so long ago, but…

Mick speaks again. “You should take the shot,” he says. “So you…don’t regret it.”

Leonard gapes at the ceiling, too surprised to even protest that _he_ is perfectly willing to “take the shot” or whatever they’re calling it. “Seriously, Mick? You’re giving me romantic advice?”

He’s seen Mick hook up a number of times over the years, it’s true, generally with a certain sort of buxom woman picked up at bars. But frankly, Leonard’s always thought Mick does it because he thinks he’s supposed to, not because he really wants to. And he’s _definitely_ not the romantic sort.

“I know you,” his friend tells him a bit defensively. “I know Blondie. I know…” His voice trails off, then, and he sighs. “Just think about it, OK?”

“I’ve thought about little else,” Leonard snaps back, also a bit defensively, then winces. He hadn’t meant to say that.

But Mick grunts in appreciation of the sentiment. “I shoulda known,” he says shrewdly. “From all the way back in the beginning. You two...” Leonard can just about hear him shaking his head.

But something’s weird about that.

“You haven’t even seen us together,” he points out. “And it hasn’t been _that _long.”

Another long pause.

“Still,” Mick says finally. “And...Snart?”

Leonard, still puzzling over...well, everything...makes a noise of distracted acknowledgment.

“You’re going to find this even weirder than everything else, but...I…I…”

Whatever Mick’s trying to say, it really must be hard to get out. Leonard frowns, listening.

“…oh, fuck,” Mick mutters in resignation. “Snart, you’re a jerk and an asshole. You’re bossy as hell and you think you know it all.”

Leonard blinks, bemused, but the other man continues.

“And you’re…you’re the best guy I ever met. OK? You’re a hero. To…me. An’ to others, too. Remember that, if you remember anything.”

And then Mick’s gone, and no amount of begging or threatening to get him to come back works.

* * *

It’s not the only weird happening of the afternoon. Leonard’s lingering in the medbay later, sort of hoping that Mick might come in, when someone else enters instead.

The clown he knows only as Ray halts in the doorway, then skulks in. Leonard’s never really seen anyone skulk badly before, but this guy manages it. He’s walking just fine on the sprained ankle, though, and Leonard wonders again if the sprain was healed just like his gunshot wound was.

“Hey,” the dark-haired man says a bit furtively. “Snart. How are you?”

Leonard stares at him, nonplussed at the overly familiar tone. “OK...” he says slowly, folding his arms and leaning against the wall. “A bit bored...”

Ray...is it short for Raymond? probably...nods, still staring at him in a way that makes Leonard want to glance around to see if he’s being pranked. He’d think the guy was trying to put a move on him, but it doesn’t feel quite like that. More like...

More regret. Again. What is it with everyone on this ship and regrets?

Finally, it seems like Ray comes to a decision. He nods again, then reaches in his pocket, making Leonard tense reflexively before he pulls out a small device, no bigger than a pack of cards but much thinner, and extends it toward Leonard.

“Go ahead,” he says as Leonard stares at him. “Take it.”

“What _is _it?”

“It’s a tempor...” Then he stops. “Uh. Just call it a...stabilizer. I made it.”

Leonard gives him a _look_. “And what does it stabilize, Raymond?” he drawls.

For some weird reason, the words make the other man blink furiously and glance away. “Long story,” he says finally. “Just...keep it on you, OK? In your pocket or something. All the time. And don’t tell anyone else about it.”

“Why...” But Leonard stops, suddenly positive he’s not going to get an answer. Not a real one anyway. He studies Ray a moment, then takes the device with a nod. Who knows; maybe he can figure out what it does, or maybe it’s valuable.

Ray deflates a little after that, in apparent relief. He turns to go, then stops, looking back over his shoulder. “You should talk to Sara,” he says quietly. “Soon. The repairs...they’re almost done.”

Leonard blinks, trying to keep his face still. “I’m _trying_,” he finally says, a touch acerbically. “I’m not the one avoiding her.”

Ray grimaces. “Right. I’ll, um, see what I can do about that.” He gives Leonard one more sad smile...and then slips out the door, leaving Leonard even more baffled than before.

* * *

Something about the weird little device makes Leonard frown, but he can’t figure out exactly what it’s supposed to do. The tech’s nothing he’s remotely familiar with. Finally, he just shrugs, carefully opens a seam in his jacket, and secretes the gadget there.

For now.

Not so long after that, there’s a...a shift, he supposes, a lurch in the floor under his feet. A sensation of rising...lifting off. Motion...and then a brief, dizzying moment of vertigo that makes his stomach wobble, makes him shake his head in an effort to clear it.

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know they’ve taken off.

Which must mean...the ship is fixed.

Leonard sits down heavily on the bed, staring at nothing in particular. How long will it be until they take him home? Will he even see Sara again? Or...

“Are you OK?”

Sara’s standing in the doorway, staring at him with concern in her eyes. He’d been so distracted that he hadn’t even heard the door open.

“Yeah,” he manages, staring back...then finds himself at an utter loss for words.

Sara edges into the room a little more. “We had to take off and and move to a safer spot,” she says apologetically. “It was a little unexpected. I didn’t get a chance to warn you.”

“I’m all right.” Leonard gets to his feet, watching her. “You?”

“Fine.”

They stare at each other a long moment, and then...

“Oh, for fuck’s sake!”

Sara stumbles forward before whirling to see who’d not only managed to sneak up on her but also gently shove her into the room. But the door closes, and it doesn’t open when she puts a hand on it.

“Gideon?!”

“I’m sorry, Captain,” the other woman says a bit primly. “It seems the door is malfunctioning.”

“Bullshit.” Sara scowls at the ceiling. “Let me out!”

“I will let you know as soon as we manage to repair things. I suggest you do the same.”

“Gid...” But Sara’s voice trails off then, and she sighs, turning to look at Leonard, who keeps his own face carefully neutral.

“That voice was Charlie’s,” he observes.

“Yeah, but I don’t think the push was,” Sara mutters, glancing back at the door again. “In fact, I think...” She stops. Sighs. Looks at him.

Leonard allows himself to crack a smile. “Conspiracy.”

“Apparently.” Sara smiles too, but it’s a little sad. “Well, I imagine you figured out that the ship is pretty much repaired. A couple more adjustments, but we should be able to take you home tomorrow.”

_Tomorrow_.

After a moment, Leonard inclines his head to her. “Thank you.”

A pause. And then they speak at the same time.

“I’d like your company even if we...”

“I’ll come by in a little bit; we need to talk...”

They both stutter to a stop about the same time, too, and then watch each other until Sara actually lets out a _huff _of a laugh.

“Dinner?” she asks quietly, putting her hand on the door. “And cards?”

Leonard meets her eyes. “And whatever you’d like to talk about.”

Sara’s lips curve, but the smile doesn’t sit quite right. “OK,” she says. “OK.”

And the door slides silently open beside her.


	5. Drive Until You Lose the Road

When Sara returns later, she brings homemade pizza and a couple beers, taking a seat without meeting his eyes and opening one of the latter. So, Leonard does the same, helping himself to a slice (how’d she know he doesn’t care for pepperoni?) and taking a long drink.

They eat mostly in silence, a tense and slightly uncomfortable silence that’s still better, Leonard, thinks, than being alone. Then Sara takes their dishes and bottles back to the galley, returning with fresh beers and tentatively holding up the deck of cards.

They play gin, both of them so distracted that it’s actually a pretty lousy game. But after he wins the second time, Sara sighs and rests her head back against the wall, closing her eyes.

Leonard waits, idly shuffling the cards, until finally, she speaks.

“There’s something we have to do,” she says quietly, opening her eyes again and gazing at him, “before you go. And I shouldn’t even be telling you. But that just doesn’t feel right.”

He tilts his head, waiting, and Sara gets up, crossing the room to pull a small bottle out of her jacket pocket. When she returns, she sits back down on the bed and holds her hand out to him. There’s a small white pill on her palm, an innocuous object indeed.

Leonard regards it, then looks back up at her.

Sara takes a deep breath. “This is an amnesia pill,” she tells him. “It’s calibrated to make you forget this whole...thing. The Monarch, getting shot, recovering, being on the ship, Mick being here...”

His hands still on the cards. “You?”

Sara stares down at the pill. “Me.”

So many things he could ask. So many questions. But it all goes back to that first one. “Why?”

And the answer is still the same. “I can’t tell you that,” she says, fingers tightening on the small object, pulling it back toward her. “But Leonard, you need to forget, or...things just won’t happen like they need to.”

As he watches her silently, without a response, her eyes harden just a little, grief in them as well.

“We can knock you out and do this the hard way,” she says softly. “Please, _please _don’t make me do that.”

Leonard studies her, a few things—dreams or half-heard memories?—finally clicking.

“You were worried that if I saw Mick, someone I’ve known so well for so long, I wouldn’t forget,” he says. “Even with this. Or if we...”

Sara’s eyes are steady on his. She doesn’t say anything, but...there’s something there. In the directness of her gaze, in the tilt of her head, in the stillness of her posture.

And suddenly, he thinks it might be...

Leonard takes a leap of faith.

“OK. If it’s so important,” he tells Sara abruptly. “I’ll do it.” Then, almost wonderingly: “I trust you.”

The sigh erupts out of her as if she can’t quite control it. Sara closes her eyes and takes another deep breath, then gets to her feet, walking a few steps away before stopping, her back still to him.

Leonard stands, too, knocking the cards to the floor, watching her. He wonders if he’s also imagining that the air’s a little charged again now, that the way Sara has her arms wrapped around herself is both a little vulnerable and a little...anticipatory.

He takes a step closer. Then another.

Sara turns to face him. She studies Leonard, expression grave.

“I...did ask Gideon to tweak the dosage a little,” she whispers. “To make it a little stronger, a bit more capable of handling certain memories. I wanted...”

Her voice trails off. Leonard studies her in return. Everything seems very still, he thinks. The ship is calm and silent, for once, and things seem...paused.

“You wanted?” he says softly.

A tiny smile crosses Sara’s face. She moves a little closer, taking what seems to be a steadying breath, then closes her eyes.

“Make love to me, Leonard,” she whispers. “Just this once. Before we say goodbye.”

Once, Leonard might have balked at that “L” word. Right now, he just steps closer, reaching out, pulling her near.

And she lifts her lips to his.

Unlike the immediate raging conflagration of before, this kiss is almost…tender. That’s something that Leonard, frankly, never thought he had in him, not in a romantic way—at least, not in a long, long time. He kisses Sara, whose surname he doesn’t even know, carefully and tenderly, willing himself, somehow, to remember this, to keep this, to impress the very essence of _Sara_ into his memory so well that nothing, no amnesia pill, no near-death experience, no mysterious future, will erase it.

It’s Sara who gets impatient with that first, putting a hand on either side of his face and deepening the kiss. A noise perhaps best described as a growl escapes her lips as she bites his bottom lip, and they promptly both overbalance and fall back onto the bed.

Which is, really, just as well.

* * *

For a while afterward, they simply stay curled up together there, Sara’s head resting on Leonard’s repaired shoulder, arms around each other, dozing. Eventually, though, Sara sighs, lifting her head to give Leonard a long, lingering kiss before pulling away and padding off to the bathroom.

And as soon as the door shuts behind her, Leonard moves too, rising from his relaxed sprawl to move with purpose across the room.

He crosses to the desk quickly, pulling out a pen and a sheet of paper, tearing off a small scrap of that paper. And he writes swiftly, making a list, 10 things in total and one word, underlined, at the top.

It will have to do. There’s so little time.

The pen and the rest of the paper go back in the drawer. Leonard folds the scrap up, one, twice, and reaches for the jacket he’s slung over the chair, the mirror to the one destroyed by the Monarch’s bullet, the one with Ray’s boxy little gadget hidden it as well. Then he pauses.

The cards, forgotten and knocked to the floor during their...activities...are scattered around by the bed. Impulsively, Leonard picks one up, turning it over in his fingers and then folding the paper around it. He tucks both in next to the gadget, deep in the lining, and returns the jacket to its spot.

All before Sara returns.

And when she does, she’s holding a glass of water...and that one white pill.

Leonard studies it, then her. “Don’t get even a little more time to draw things out, huh?” he asks quietly.

Sara, now wearing a blue robe, isn’t meeting his eyes again. “The closer to...to what we need you to forget, the better,” she says quietly, sitting down and watching as he gets up to retrieve fresh clothing. “And it’s going to knock you out, so better now.”

“Hm. Mick?”

She understands the question. “He said...that he’s already said what he needs to.”

“Typical.” Leonard dresses quickly, efficiently, watching her in return. “So I’m just going to lose...what, a week?” He tries to keep his voice clinical, pretty sure he’s not really pulling it off.

“Rather more. You were out...days, in the beginning.” Sara’s voice is so low he can barely hear it. “It really was touch and go. The Monarch knew his business.”

“Why did he…” Leonard lets his voice trail off. Again. She’s not going to answer him, after all.

Then, to his surprise, she does.

“Because you’re a hero, Leonard Snart,” Sara says quietly, getting to her feet, putting the items down, and stepping close. “No matter how hard you try to deny it, not matter how many times you play the villain. You have that in you, and without you…” She stops as Leonard digests the words, so similar to the ones Mick had said. “Well. The Monarch’s goals would have been easier to accomplish.”

“I’m not a hero,” Leonard tells her, uneasily. Looking down into her blue eyes, it’s amazingly difficult to get the words out. “I’m just a crook. I’ll never be a hero.”

But for her…would he?

Sara gives him a sad, sad smile. “You know,” she murmurs, “to some extent, I wish that was true. But…” She shakes her head, closing her eyes. To Leonard’s disbelief, he’d swear he can see tears glinting at the edges of her eyes.

“Hey,” he whispers, putting a hand along her jaw. “Sara…”

But what can he say? So instead, he just tips her head up, leans forward, and kisses her, a kiss both sweet and fiery, the salt of her tears on both their lips.

And then, after an uncertain amount of time, he lets her go, and steps back.

Sara drags in a breath, then another. Then she picks up the pill and the water again.

“I’m crushing this and mixing them,” she tells him, not without a little humor, as she sits down and he sits next to her. “I know...I figure you’re probably pretty good at sleight of hand. And I can’t have this pill vanishing.”

“I promised,” he tells her seriously in return. And he had. Normally, it might not have made much of a difference. But…he’d promised _Sara_.

So, he watches her crush the pill, watches her drop it into the water, where the powder immediately dissolves. He watches her nod to herself and then hand the glass to him.

Leonard studies it, thinking. But he’s not sure what to say for his last words here…and so he says nothing at all. Still, he toasts her with the glass, trying to say with his expression the feelings he’s not sure how to articulate.

And then he drinks it down.

* * *

Leonard Snart dreams, caught in the space between past and present and future.

And in that dream—he thinks it’s a dream—he stands in the medbay, looking around at the tech that’d saved his life. Tech that…he finally lets himself think it…looks astonishingly futuristic.

And then a dark-haired woman walks, smiling, out of the shadows.

“Hello, Leonard,” she says demurely, pausing and folding her hands in front of her. “It’s nice to finally meet you in person. In a way, at any rate.”

Leonard blinks. He knows that voice. Even in sleep, he can already feel so many things starting to slip away from him. But he _knows_ that voice.

“I’m dreaming,” he tells himself, not without some annoyance.

“That doesn’t mean it’s not real,” the woman notes. “Dreams often have a degree of truth, don’t you find?”

Leonard shakes his head. “Gideon,” he acknowledges. “And why didn’t I meet you before?”

Her lips curve in a smile. “You do like to ask ‘why,’ don’t you?” She holds up a hand as he starts to retort. “And I understand it, believe me. But that’s really beside the point. I’m not sure how much time I’ll have with you here, so let me do this before I change my mind.”

He snorts, using scorn to cover just how unsettled he is. “Are _you_ going to tell me that I’m a hero, too?”

Gideon’s smile only widens. “In a way. You could say, Leonard, that I have a…unique perspective. I see patterns. Rather like you, in a way.”

Leonard tilts his head at her. “Now, how do you know that?”

Gideon doesn’t answer the question. Instead, she just studies him a moment longer.

“Your list is a good start,” she says, making Leonard start. “And Dr. Palmer’s gadget. But they say ‘three times a charm’ for a reason.” She nods. “I believe that anything I tell you in this…liminal space…will stay with you on some level. So…”

She…flickers. Leonard blinks. Gideon, restored to her previous state, frowns.

“Your time here is starting to fade,” she says sharply. “So. Leonard Snart. Listen to me.”

This time everything swims in front of Leonard’s eyes, like he’s underwater. He drags in a breath, gaze flicking back and forth. Things are foggy at the edges of his vision, too.

Gideon doesn’t move, but she lifts her voice then. “You _are_ a hero, or you can be one,” she tells him. “Listen to the speedster, when you find him.”

Leonard frowns at the word, which he’s heard once before. He puts a hand out, toward the wall, but his fingers go right through it. “What the hell…”

The woman continues as if nothing’s happening. “The list you made…it might help. And keep the stabilizer with you. Especially at the point where _all things vanish_.”

The fog is closing in. Leonard takes a deep breath, almost surprised to find his lungs still work. Gideon’s a smear of dark hair and pale skin and, oddly, what he thinks is binary code.

“And if someone ever gives you a chance to steal the Mona Lisa right off da Vinci’s easel—take it.”

There’s a bit of a laugh in her voice, right as the spark that is Leonard’s consciousness winks out.

“You are, I’ve heard, one hell of a thief.”

* * *

**The Waverider, May 2020—Fifteen years later**

Sara doesn’t go with Mick to take the younger version of Leonard back to 2005 Central City. Better to make the break clean, she tells herself, walking along one of the ship’s corridors.

Well. Cleaner. Sleeping with him—that had probably been a mistake. She bites her lip, but can’t resist a smile at the memory. Gideon had sworn that it should be OK. Though why she’d changed her tune about that...

Could he have remembered at all, 11 years later for him, in 2016? Did anything sneak through? Sara remembers ice-blue eyes fixed on her, on a rooftop, in the Waverider hallways, in a dive bar in 1975. Remembers how Leonard had gravitated toward her from the start, how he’d known what to say in Russia, how he’d stared at her again at the end, sparks raining down around him...

She’s only been wandering, checking out the ship and keeping her mind busy—and avoiding Mick and Ray, who’d seemed to want to get her to _talk _about it—but Sara’s not surprised when she winds up in one of the cargo bays. _That _cargo bay, where they’d once hidden out to play cards and talk, where she’d found him sulking during the Chronos situation.

With a sigh, she sinks to the floor, leaning her head back against the wall and closing her eyes.

“I miss you,” she tells Leonard Snart’s shade. “I miss the...the first one I knew, and now I miss the other one, too. Damn it, Leonard...”

What else is there to say?

After an indeterminable amount of time, Sara shakes her head and gets up again, preparing to put her captain face back on and head back to the bridge. But something catches her eye, then, something she’d known was in this very bay, and she pauses.

It’d been Ray who’d packed up Leonard’s things after...after, when Mick had still been in denial and Sara had been torn with grief for Laurel. Sara runs her fingers over the crate, which is marked with a somehow subdued “LS” and sighs again.

And then, on a whim, she sits back down.

This is more personal stuff than the parkas he’d kept as part of the public façade. Sara lifts a neatly folded black sweater out of the crate with hands she swears, _swears_, don’t shake at all, then drops it in her lap and pulls out the book that’d been under it. She’d seen him reading it, sprawled on his bed in his usual boneless manner, any number of times. And teased him for it.

Sara opens the copy of _The Time Machine_ now, smiling a little. An item falls out, and she instinctively catches it.

She nearly puts the scrap of paper, apparently just an impromptu bookmark, aside and forgets about it...but the familiar feel of what it’s wrapped around makes her pause.

It’s a card. The Jack of Hearts, to be precise. It’s worn and well-used, one edge just a little nicked in a very familiar way.

Sara stares at it a long moment, resisting the sudden urge to run back to her room and rifle through the deck there—the one that’s safely tucked in her desk, the one that she’s only ever used with one other person. She hadn’t exactly checked to be sure all the cards were there—was it only a day ago?—when she’d picked them up after Leonard was...gone.

Then she glances down at the paper.

Reads it through once, her mouth falling open. Then again.

Her eyes linger on the last words. Wondering. Pondering. And then...

Hoping.

Finally, Sara’s fingers tighten around the scrap, though she releases her grip nearly immediately so not to damage the fragile paper. She dumps the sweater and the book back in the crate and gets to her feet. And then she starts for the bridge.

Partway there, she starts running.

“Gideon!” she yells as she does. “Set a course for the Vanishing Point!”

* * *

Leonard opens his eyes.

It takes, truthfully, a rather monumental effort. He feels...drained. Exhausted. As if every bit of energy had leaked out with...

He frowns. What had happened again? It’s a blur, but...

He stares straight ahead, fighting down a rush of panic, feeling the not-uncomfortable surface below him, willing the indistinct shape looming over him to come into focus. He remembers his fear at the sight of Mick with his hand buried deep in the Oculus device. He remembers the blue light of the wellspring. Remembers the taste of Sara Lance still on his lips. Remembers snarking at the Time Bastards.

And he remembers…

Holy hell. He _remembers_.

Leonard takes a sudden deep, shaky breath and focuses. He’s in the medbay—and he recognizes it, knows it’s on the Waverider. And...

And Sara Lance is staring down at him, her face grave and still and yet somehow....

Leonard stares back, halfway convinced he’s dreaming again. His eyes flick this way and that, but they seem to be alone. There’s an IV tower by his side, though it’s no longer connected and there’s a bandage on his arm. Both his arms are bare, sleeves pushed up and jacket missing.

“Sara,” he croaks finally, looking back at her.

Sara doesn’t move. “Leonard,” she returns calmly. Her hands tighten on the railing of the medbay bed. “What do you remember?”

Leonard frowns, starting at the ceiling, sorting out timelines in his head, dealing with memories he’s pretty sure had been buried for...how long?

He’d met her in 2005, when she’d saved his life, he realizes. When they’d...

And then he’d forgotten. He’d _forgotten_. He’d met her again in 2016—him not remembering, her never having met him at that point, thanks to the wonders of time travel. And then the Vanishing Point had happened. And now...

“When?” he manages, looking up at her. “_When_?”

Sara’s lips twitch. “I imagine that’s better in some ways than _why_,” she muses, then shakes her head. “2020. It’s been four years. Since the Oculus. You were...sort of floating in the timestream, unconscious.”

He’s still digesting that when she continues. “And I suppose it’s been 15 years, for you, since...since the Monarch.”

Leonard studies her, pushing himself up on his arms so that he’s sitting. And remembering. “And for you?” he asks quietly.

Sara glances away. “That was only a few days ago,” she admits. “I…I went looking through your things, after Mick took you back to 2005. And I found the note you apparently wrote yourself, the one from that year. Including that last item. And I thought…maybe…”

Her eyes dart back to him before he can speak up. “You remember? Now?”

It’s still a struggle to untangle. “You mean...being on the ship the past few weeks? Or, for me, 15 years ago?”

When she nods, he shrugs, a one-shouldered gesture. “I do now. All of it...I think.” _The taste of her lips, the feel of her skin under his hands, the way she'd gasped into his ear..._

Leonard realizes he’s staring and clears his throat. “Before, it was just...echoes,” he says. “And an old piece of paper I’d found in my coat after a few missing days back in 2005, with a list that didn’t make sense—until things started to happen, about nine years later...”

His voice trails off as Sara reaches in a pocket and pulls out the note, holding it out to him.

“**_Remember_**” is written at the top, underlined firmly. And then:

_Speedster_

_Cold gun_

_Lewis-dead?_

_TIME TRAVEL_

** _Sara_ **

_Mick-pilot?_

_Gideon_

_Cards-gin_

_Hell of a thief_

_Stabilizer-temporal?_

All the bits and pieces that just hadn’t made sense. Until that red blur in 2014 had started the wheels turning, the dreams returning.

_This blur is a man...we’re going to have to up our game._

_So I should be a hero like you, Barry? What exactly does that pay again? _

_It's just a matter of time._

_A matter of time._

_Time..._

Leonard blinks. When he looks up again, Sara is holding the little device Raymond—oh, he remembers where it came from, now—had pressed upon him so long ago. He’d nearly picked it apart or thrown it away dozens of times, but instead kept it in his black jacket, irritated by the weird and completely unjustified conviction that he had to hold on to it.

“This apparently kept you stable and in suspended animation in the timestream,” she says, looking at it. “How?”

Leonard tries a smirk on her. “Raymond.”

Sara shakes her head, though she looks unsurprised—and even slightly amused. “Of course it was,” she murmurs. “He’s going to be insufferable.”

“And Mick said a few things, too,” Leonard continues. “And Gideon. I’m not sure how I retained any of it, but she’s part of the reason I kept that thing—and the reason I came on this boat in the first place.”

Sara blinks, then casts her eyes upward.

“Really, Gideon?” she asks with amused exasperation mixed with...is it gratitude. “After all that about not changing everything?”

“It worked, did it not, Captain?” the AI responds immediately. “And it was Mr. Snart’s original presence on this ship that couldn’t change. I said nothing of what could come later.”

Gideon pauses. “During Mr. Snart’s soujourn on this ship the first time, there were...a number of things I found odd,” she notes. “His original choice to even come on this mission. How well he seemed to know you, Captain Lance. Other small details. The pattern was not something I could ignore.”

“ 'A unique perspective,’ ” Leonard says thoughtfully. “Guess you were right.”

“Indeed.” The AI seems amused. “Hello, Mr. Snart,” she says. “I am...glad...you remembered. And I’m glad you’ve returned.”

Leonard feels a real smile touching his lips. “Hello, Gideon,” he returns. “So am I.”

The AI’s tone becomes a bit wry, then. “Now, may I suggest that the two of you actually talk?” she says. “Mr. Rory and Dr. Palmer are threatening to break down the door just to verify that you’re OK, and none of us particularly want to watch the two of you dance around each other for a _third _time. As Mr. Rory so eloquently says, ‘Fix your shit.’”

It’s clearly a dismissal. After a moment of surprised silence, Leonard smirks again, glancing at Sara. Then, moving carefully, he gets to his feet, steadying himself on the bed as she watches him.

“Hell of a thief?” he asks quietly.

Sara smiles, just a little. “I know it’s been…a long time for you...” she says, looking curiously vulnerable again.

“Actually, it feels like minutes since you kissed me,” Leonard tells her seriously, taking a cautious step toward her. “Though I didn’t remember…we’d once done more…when I was younger.” He pauses. “You prefer the younger model? I was certainly a little less cynical...a little less gray...”

And that, as he’d hoped, gets a real laugh. Sara looks him up and down, then lifts an eyebrow at him.

“Stop fishing for compliments, crook,” she says, stepping closer herself. “You know you still look good.”

Leonard acknowledges it with a tip of his head. “So do you,” he says quietly. “And being captain...it really suits you.”

“Thanks.” Sara looks a little sad for a moment, then shakes her head before focusing on him again. "I missed you, crook,” she says quietly. “A lot. You up for a little more time travel?”

Leonard considers sarcasm. Then, for once in his life, dismisses it.

Instead, he reaches out, slowly, and Sara steps into his arms, putting her own around his waist as she looks up at him.

“If you’ll have me,” he affirms. “And if you’re OK with the older and somewhat crankier version. And, just maybe...”

Sara smirks as his voice trails off. “A little bit of...me and you?” she asks carefully.

“Yeah. Or maybe...a lot.”

And this time, their kiss isn’t a goodbye. It’s not a memory being made, or even an explosion of pent-up desire. (Well. Not only _that_.)

It’s a promise.

And when they part, they’re both smiling.

Then Leonard laughs, suddenly, a glint in his eye as Sara frowns at him.

“I was right,” he informs her. “All this time. It _is _sort of a Tardis.”

She pokes him in the chest. “It’s a timeship! Not the same thing!”

“Is so. Gideon?”

Gideon, wisely, stays out of it.

* * *

_And I would have stayed up with you all night_ _Had I known how to save a life_

— “How to Save a Life,” the Fray


End file.
